Baying for Blood
by PersephoneLassus
Summary: "It's never going to go away, is it? Not really. And especially not for her. She can't just turn it off. People are going to die. That's just how it is." / For the first time since graduation, they're all back together in Beacon Hills - and for some reason, Lydia can't help but feel that there is something very, very wrong. / Stydia / Scalia / Dark!Isaac / Vampires
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hello everybody, and welcome to my new fic. Just a note that each scene has an accompanying song which you don't have to listen to, but they do really work with the atmosphere! All songs are on Spotify.**

 **Happy reading!**

 **Persephone xo**

/ Kids by MGMT

Summer.

The Beacon Hills air was balmy, and a light breeze rustled through the car, ruffling both Stiles and Scott's hair. Scott was sitting forward in his seat, drumming on the dashboard of the Jeep. MGMT was playing through the slightly crackling speakers, a steady base beat humming through the seats. Stiles felt strangely euphoric; his mind clear after what felt like an eternity.

It was summer break, his first proper break from the FBI academy, and Stiles didn't have a care in the world. No deadlines, no work, no _adult_ problems to deal with now that he was home and, blissfully, nothing supernatural looming over his head. Except for maybe Scott, and he wasn't really a problem. It felt almost unsettling to be so relaxed, so normal. For once he was just a regular teenager, coming home from college and meeting up with his best friends for lunch.

And Lydia, of course.

He saw her a lot, but that didn't change the little flutter he felt thinking about her.

"How's Davis?" Stiles asked, determined not to fall into the trap of fixating about Lydia and turning bright red.

"'Bout the same as it was when you visited me two weeks ago," Scott joked, sitting back in his seat. "Sunny, competitive and my microbiology lecturer still hates me."

"I know, but like…" Stiles narrowed his eyes at the road ahead of him, checking it was clear, before turning to look his best friend in the eyes. "No supernatural shit?"

"Don't you think I would have told you?" replied Scott, looking amused.

Stiles frowned, eyes back on the road. "I know. But I'd understand if you hadn't told me. Seeing as, you know, I wasn't told when the entire town tried to kill you, and I know that was because you didn't want to screw up my chances in training. I'm just saying, now I'm in a good place and if there's anything happening with you then I want to know."

Scott laughed, stretching out on his seat like a cat. "Seriously, dude, nothing is happening. It's kind of weird, to be honest. I got so used to waking up and having to fight for things, you know?"

A knot of tension released that Stiles hadn't even known he was carrying.

"That's good, bro. Sorry, I had to ask."

Scott shrugged. "You want to help your friends. No apology necessary." There was a long pause. "It's a shame about Lydia."

Stiles' face twisted in pain. "Yeah, it is."

They shared a companionable silence for a few moments. Stiles watched the road rushing past the battered blue jeep as he drove slightly above the speed limit (he wasn't really worried about getting a ticket from the Sherriff's department – he knew a guy) down the roads he had driven nearly every day as a high schooler. He had missed Beacon Hills in a twisted way. It had been all he had ever known, no matter how much pain the town also caused him. There was the swimming pool that they had visited every single day during a heatwave – the same pool that a tear-streaked Lydia had called him to when she had found a human sacrifice there. If he took the next left, he knew the winding road would lead him to the Beacon Hills nature preserve, where Melissa had taken him bug hunting while his mom was in hospital. Beyond the trees, a twenty minute walk from the road, was the Nemeton, an innocent looking tree stump that had triggered two years of misery.

"It's never going to go away, is it?" Scott said quietly, eyes fixed on the road ahead. "Not really. And especially not for her. She can't just turn it off. People are going to die. That's just how it is."

The mood had turned suddenly sombre. Stiles knew he was thinking about Allison, and to a lesser extent Erica and Boyd and Aiden, everyone they had lost – and even Kira, and Isaac, and Cora, and everyone else that had been such a dazzling presence in their lives before they had needed to run, from something or to something.

"I hope this is it now, though," Stiles said soberly. "This I can deal with. So, my girlfriend is some kind of supernatural sniffer dog, and every few weeks she calls me from a random location crying because she found a body. I can deal with that. We're getting through it. But that's it, you know? That's the limit. Being at college has been a wake-up call. I can't go back to being scared all the time, Scott."

Scott reached over the console to squeeze his shoulder.

"It's over now, Stiles," he said reassuringly. "Trust me."

/Dance, Dance, Dance by Lykke Li

"Can you turn the engine on so I can roll my window down? Please?" Malia begged, fingering the neckline of her denim shirt.

Lydia ran her ring finger around the edge of her lips, trying to neaten up the edges of her freshly-applied cherry-red lipstick. They were sat in her car in the parking lot of a local diner, waiting for Scott and Stiles to materialise so they could get some food and catch up. Lydia hadn't seen Scott since Christmas, and though they talked pretty regularly she couldn't wait to hug him.

"You realise that rolling down the window won't do a lot, right?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the mirror in the sun visor. "It only works when you're moving, because the speed of the car means the air rushes past you. It's basically pointless now."

Malia slumped back into the seat. "But there _must_ be some kind of wind. I forgot how hot it is in California."

"There's a breeze," Lydia conceded, snapping the visor back up. "But still, no bugs in my car, thanks. However…" Lydia turned the key in the ignition, her little red Beetle humming to life. "I did invest in air-con."

Her friend gave a dramatic sigh of relief, turning the air vents towards herself. As Lydia's car awoke, the screen on her dashboard lit up _, Dance, Dance, Dance_ by Lykke Li suddenly playing through the speakers. Lydia turned the volume dial down, letting the song turn into comfortable background music.

"They'll be here soon, anyway," said Lydia, turning one air vent towards her face. She hadn't realised how warm she was until she felt the cool air on her cheeks.

"Speaking of," Malia said, turning to lean over conspiratorially. "Are you excited to see Stiles?"

Lydia was surprised to hear such a juvenile question from Malia, but face didn't change; she continued to stare out expectantly into the parking lot ahead of them, a small smile on her lips and, of course, excellent posture. Somehow, she always seemed to look regal. Or smug. Malia couldn't be sure of the difference – she was still getting the hang of the subtle nuances of human expression.

"I'm always excited to see Stiles," Lydia said primly. "Of course, I do see him every other week. The real question is, are you excited to see Scott?"

Malia scowled. "No fair! You changed the subject."

Lydia shrugged, side-eying her friend. "All is fair in love and war. You don't need to answer. I'm sure it will be plainly obvious to me – and everyone else - when I see you together."

"Stupid wolf boy. Stiles was so much less confusing," huffed Malia, crossing her arms.

"Stiles was barely dating you," Lydia said bluntly, pulling her phone out to see if anyone had deigned to offer an explanation for being eight minutes late. They hadn't.

"You're mean today," Malia grumbled, shooting her a disdainful look.

"I haven't been sleeping well," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "But it's different, isn't it? You and Stiles were having sex. That was about it, nothing complicated there. You and Scott are totally different. You had a real moment."

"And then he went to college and we barely spoke for a year."

" _You_ went to Paris. _And_ Scott told Stiles that you never replied to his messages."

"That's unfair. There was a time difference. And I hate texting! He always uses those stupid faces, and they look nothing like normal facial expressions. How am I supposed to know what he means?" Malia whined, pouting like a petulant child.

Lydia suppressed a snort. "It's fine, Malia. College does that," she said, trying to sound reassuring. "I'm sure he didn't expect you to stay single in Paris for the whole year, either."

"But what are we now? Are we friends? Do I kiss him when I see him?"

"I don't know," Lydia said. "Stop putting pressure on yourselves. Let it happen naturally. _Que sera sera._ "

"I know I lived in France this year, but my French skills really aren't very good," Malia said.

Lydia smiled. "That's not the point. The point is that long distance relationships suck, and we're still young. Nobody expects you to be committed. Just have fun, Malia."

"Have fun. I like that advice," Malia said, relaxing a little. "How did you and Stiles make it work?"

Lydia looked thoughtful, playing with the corner of her phone case.

"In all honestly, we nearly didn't," she admitted. "It was tough. We'd see each other every other weekend, of course, but it was an eight hour trip each way. Even making the journey once a month – we'd alternate who visited who, you see – even then it was stressful. And we'd Skype almost every night, while we cooked dinner. Sometimes while we studied too. We didn't talk much while we studied, of course, but it was nice to feel like he was there. He'd interrupt me to read out funny case studies from his textbooks."

Looking across at her friend, Malia seemed almost sad. "I don't think Scott and I are anything like that," she said in a small voice.

Lydia chewed her lower lip. "Maybe not. But I ignored Stiles for the first ten years I knew him. Relationships evolve. You'll get nowhere by comparing yourself to other people."

"I guess," said Malia. "I hate this. Give me ten kanimas over this adult relationship bullshit. At least you know where you stand with a kanima."

Lydia looked at the glovebox, where even today she knew an innocent-looking door key sat on a chain in a little silver box, and wondered if it was possible to ever knew where you stood, truly.

/Nitesky by Robot Koch and John Lamonica

She was freezing.

Morinna always felt cold; possibly something to do with the extremely slow beating heart and the fact that she was, by some estimations, dead. But in this moment she was even colder than usual. It was something she had been able to take with her, a relic from her former life: every time she was doing something wrong, a chill broke through her.

And by most ethical systems, she was fairly certain that what she was doing right now was very, very wrong.

Morinna tried to tell herself that breaking into a blood bank at 3AM to steal resources from sick people was the lesser of two evils, but she was painfully aware that you don't normally need to hide behind a laundry cart when you're being a morally upstanding citizen.

A trickle of treacly blood ran down her chin from where the teeth had dug in. She wasn't sure when it had happened - probably a few minutes ago, considering how slowly her blood flowed now. Morinna dug her sharp nails into her palm, settling into the familiar scars, and traced the shape of her teeth with her tongue. She began counting the dust particles she could see in the air. The nurse needed to leave, quickly. Morinna liked to consider herself perpetually in control, but she still had limits and within a few minutes her ethically sourced meal would turn into a murder investigation. She could flee the scene with ease, but there was something about the area that Morinna liked and she didn't want ruin it.

After what seemed like an age she heard the click of the door shutting. With what felt like superhuman strength, she made herself count to ten before darting out from her hiding place and straight to the chest refrigerator. It took her less than a second to seize three bags of group A and sink her teeth into one of them, her head feeling light as she began to guzzle it. O negative was her favourite, far less bitter, but it could be used on patients of any blood type and so it was always high in demand. Group A was usually overstocked, so she was careful to double-check the labels and make sure that she was only taking that kind. It made her feel marginally less guilty.

She caught sight of herself then, in the mirror above the sink. Chalky skin, with light caramel hair tumbling in messy waves over her shoulders; wide, scared, eyes with only a narrow rim of grey-blue visible around the iris, the colour returning slowly as she felt the warmth of the blood taking root in her stomach. Stark against her washed out, watery palette was the scarlet stain of the meal on her pale lips.

She looked like she had stepped straight out of a horror movie.


	2. Chapter 2

/The Passenger by Hunter as a Horse

Isaac almost walked out of the airport six times.

He didn't want to go back to Beacon Hills. There was too much pain there, pain in every corner of the town. Even his happy memories were tinted red, like blood.

But something was drawing him there, something he couldn't explain. Maybe he had unfinished business, he wasn't sure. He'd certainly left things up in the air.

Melissa appeared in his mind, then. Melissa handing him a cup of coffee in the morning. Melissa making sure he ate before his finals. Melissa at 2am, in scrubs, finding him crouched behind the couch and sitting down next to him, silent and serene.

He would go back and see her, say sorry for running, thank her for everything. And then he could leave again. Back to Alaska or Cuba or wherever felt right for him.

 _Gate 12_. His flight flashed on the departures board, and a few people around him stood up to make their way to the gate. He rose too, hauling his backpack over his shoulder – and stopped. Left: departures. Right: the exit.

Isaac made a decision.

/Missing You by DWNTWN

Lydia always forgot how much she loved Stiles until she saw him again. It sounded awful, because she loved him very much indeed. Enough that his absence made her feel hollow and cold. Still, whenever she saw him it was like losing all the air from her lungs. It reminded her just how much she needed him to be close, to be with her, to hold on to her, to remind her that he was still here, that he would never disappear again. Being apart hurt, yes, but every time she was with him she needed to wrap her arms around him and never let go.

It was just like Allison had described all those years ago, her hopeful face lit up pure white in the moonlight. Lydia hadn't known what love was, then, in a relationship where a smile or a compliment felt like things she had to fight for. Now she understood, now that Stiles felt like an additional organ that she needed to survive.

She was tucked under his arm, safe and warm, as they sat in a booth right by the door of the diner (unsurprisingly they always seemed to gravitate towards places with an efficient escape route) and watched Scott and Malia sneak little tentative glances at each other, both turning a rosy pink colour as their eyes almost met. Lydia could hear Stiles' heart through the fragile bones in his chest, _thump, thump, thump_ , and her own chest swelled and ached with the promise that they had the whole summer ahead of them. No more eight-hour journeys, or missed phone calls, or, hopefully, near death experiences. In the back of her throat, like a snake ready to strike, was a familiar tickle. Lydia pushed it to the back of her mind, and by some blessing it didn't grow.

"So, Malia," Stiles said, and Lydia felt his voice rumbling through his body. " _Tu t'es amusé en France?_ "

Malia stared at him across the table, eyes wide and lips pressed together, an almost comical expression of cluelessness. "Say what now, bud?"

Lydia laughed. "'Did you enjoy France?'" she translated. "I can't believe you didn't pick up any of the language at all."

"Oh!" exclaimed Malia. " _Oui_ , _oui,_ France was _bon_. _Tres_ good!"

Even Scott snickered. "Your French sucks, Malia," he said, the first time that he had spoken directly to her beyond the cursory greeting.

She glowered at him. "I took Spanish, not French. And everyone spoke English, anyway, so what's the point?"

Lydia felt Stiles chuckle beside her. She looked up at him, her smile widening. " _Le français est la langue de l'amour_ ," she said quietly, enjoying the sudden discovery of a quasi-secret language that only she and Stiles knew. Scott knew only a few sentences, but Stiles had taken AP French as well as Spanish and she had become fluent around the age of ten.

Stiles didn't bother replying. Instead he grinned at her with his whiskey-eyes crinkling at the edges.

"Couples," Malia said despairingly, rolling her eyes at them.

"Couples," Scott agreed. His voice was edged with something bitter, and Lydia narrowed her eyes at him. Both he and Malia seemed quite intent on not making eye contact, and seemed very grateful when a waitress came to take their order.

"Catch any bad guys yet, Stiles?" Scott asked light-heartedly as soon as the waitress left.

Stiles winked at him, tapping his nose dramatically. "That's classified information, Scotty."

"Didn't you finish your basic training six months ago?"

"I did indeed. Then I was recommended for intelligence training by your old man, which I finished last week. _Then_ I told them I wouldn't be accepting any assignments for three months, so I could come here and spend summer with the rest of you," he explained, squeezing Lydia as he spoke.

"And they just let you take three months off?" Malia asked, sounding unconvinced.

"They let you do a lot when you graduate top of your class," Lydia said proudly, leaning her head onto his shoulder. "He's going into the violent crime division. Specialising in cold murder cases."

"Sounds about right," Malia said, the happy ending of a cold case herself. "Surely you must come across some supernatural stuff, right? What was it your dad said? He thought like, eighty percent of cold cases must have some kind of supernatural element?"

Stiles shrugged. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Maybe the FBI already know."

"Really?" asked Scott, leaning forward.

"Maybe. They haven't _told_ me they know, but I figure _someone_ must have seen something. Maybe I'll rise up the ranks and one day they'll sit me down for the big reveal and I'll just laugh and say 'thanks, Sir, but don't bother with the PowerPoint, my girlfriend is a banshee.'" he joked, looking to Lydia for approval out of habit. He didn't consider a joke a success until it made Lydia smile, even though both Scott and Malia had guffawed.

She was staring pointedly at the table, the muscle in her jaw tensing and relaxing. Stiles snaked his free arm across his lap to grab her cold hand and give it a reassuring squeeze, feeling immediately guilty for reminding her that she was a banshee.

"I wonder where our drinks are," he said, deftly changing the subject.

"I thought Lydia was the psychic one," Malia quipped as the waitress appeared out of nowhere with a tray, setting down coffees in front of Lydia and Scott and huge milkshakes in front of Stiles and Malia. She put two large baskets of fries in the centre of the table, and disappeared to bring over the burgers and chicken salad they had ordered.

"I missed this," Stiles sighed dramatically, immediately dipping a fry into his vanilla milkshake.

"You're a monster," Lydia said, shaking her head.

Malia looked at him in awe, her mouth hanging open. "I can't believe I never thought of that!" she said, snatching up a handful of fries to try it herself. "This is the greatest thing. So, Lydia, anything spooky happened to you lately? Find any bodies?"

Lydia flinched, standing up abruptly. "I forgot they had a jukebox in here," she said wanly. "I'll be right back."

Stiles watched her walking straight-backed to the jukebox on the other side of the diner, a grimace on his face. Scott looked at the table sadly.

"What did I say?" Malia asked, looking between Lydia and Stiles for an explanation.

Scott finally looked at her. "Lydia's been finding bodies again," he said quietly. "She's a bit upset about it."

Malia nodded, processing. "None of us are going to die, right?" she asked bluntly.

"No," Scott replied, a hint of a smile. "No, we're okay. She moved somewhere new, it was bound to happen sometime."

Suddenly they heard a clattering noise, their eyes immediately drawn to the far side of the restaurant. It looked like Lydia had dropped her phone on the floor, but she made no effort to pick it up. Slowly she turned around, her face pale and blank.

"Lydia?" Stiles called over, rising cautiously from his seat.

She began to walk towards them. Stiles stayed where he was, not quite standing, not quite sitting, with concern painting his features. Lydia walked straight past the table and to the opposite end of the restaurant, sliding robotically into a different booth.

/Navigate by Band of Skulls

Morinna was nursing a coffee when the strange girl sat in the seat opposite her and stared at her, unblinking, mouth hanging slightly open, for a full thirty seconds.

"Yes?" Morinna asked candidly, too drained to be dealing with this nonsense.

The girl looked confused, her eyelids fluttering. She put a hand to her throat and opened her mouth like she was about to speak before deciding against it. She was about Morinna's age with a real English rose complexion – creamy white skin with an exuberant blush of pink on her cheeks and lips, the colour brought out by soft coppery hair flowing in such a perfect way that Morinna almost resented her. Her own hair was perpetually messy, even when styled.

"Lydia?" someone said, their voice lilting as if they were reasoning with a small child. Lydia – that was her name. A boy was standing over their table, looking at the girl sadly. Morinna raised an eyebrow at him, awaiting an explanation. Nobody sane had behaved like this back at home – intrusive and unapologetic.

"I want to scream, Stiles," Lydia whispered. "Why do I want to scream?"

She never took her eyes off Morinna. They were a greenish brown colour, kind of like moss, very pretty. _She_ was very pretty.

Stiles – a weird name for a weird character - looked at Morinna like he was in intense pain. She felt exposed, naked, uncomfortable. It was a cruelly familiar sensation.

"Come and talk to Scott, now, Lydia," he said gently. "Scott will know what to do." He reached out to take her hand and lead her away.

A burst of anger blossomed in Morinna's chest. She detested not understanding things.

"Sit down," she said, her voice like honey. Trance-like, Stiles slipped onto the bench besides Lydia. "You're going to tell me what's going on."

"Lydia is a –" he began emotionlessly.

"No!" Lydia burst out, standing up suddenly. She looked at Morinna defiantly, breathing hard. "Sorry about that," she said, voice strained. "Wrong person. We have to be going now."

She pushed Stiles out of the booth, almost straight onto the floor, and marched him back across the diner. Morinna stared at the bubbles on top of her coffee, feeling almost as lost as she had a year ago when she had woken up a monster.

Whoever Lydia was, compulsion didn't seem to work on her. And compulsion worked on _everyone_.

Morinna downed her coffee in seconds and went up to the counter to give the waitress a five dollar bill. Lydia, Stiles and two other people were staring at her from a table by the window, seeming more than a little shaken. Morinna stared them down, crossing her arms. She wasn't used to being seen as threatening, let alone as a predator. Today she was wearing a white cotton dress with big bell sleeves and a black fringed waistcoat – it was hard for her to believe she looked scary at all.

Still, the group were unnerved. All of them looked down – except for one, the boy she hadn't met yet. He had dark hair and he was staring straight into her eyes, unperturbed.

 _I want to scream_ , Lydia had said. Morinna looked away, agitated. Could it be possible that this strange girl knew what she was?

"Do you want a receipt?" the waitress asked, her perky voice cutting through the tension.

Morinna shook her head, not making eye contact. "Keep the change," she mumbled, heading straight for the door.

Out of the corner of her eye, she swore she had seen Scott's eyes flash red.


	3. Chapter 3

/Rise and Fall by The Rigs

Scott had been following her for the best part of five hours.

She wasn't human. She smelled different; she was almost certainly some kind of supernatural being he hadn't encountered before. _Almost_ human, but with another note – kind of like burnt sugar and cigarette smoke. Other than this, she had acted inoffensively since he had met her. She ate and drank like normal, hadn't shape-shifted, and had run around town picking up dry-cleaning and coffee and even a book from the bookstore. Still, Scott and his friends acted very much the same way – unremarkably, if you didn't catch them on a full moon.

He could cross wolf, were-coyote, kanima, kitsune and even ghost rider off the list. She didn't seem to fit any of those categories, anything he had seen before.

Lydia had wanted to scream – could she be something like a hellhound? An omen of death might inspire such a reaction… though Lydia had never been wary of Jordan, and he smelt as human as everyone else. This was the problem with the supernatural world – he couldn't just google it. Scott had no idea what was out there, let alone what this girl could be. He would have to consult Deaton, even though he had very little to go off.

A noise behind him pulled Scott away from his thoughts; footsteps, and suddenly that dark smell he had been pursuing. He turned around quickly, coming face to face with his mark.

She was standing ten feet away clutching a steaming navy mug of coffee with both hands. She had changed her clothes; now she wore a burgundy long-sleeved t-shirt, black leggings and simple black ankle-boots. She was slight; not skinny, but petite, with long caramel coloured hair. She looked at him evenly, her face betraying no especial emotion. It was almost unnerving.

"Hi," Scott said slowly, standing up from where he leaned on his motorbike.

"I brought you coffee," said the girl, her voice even and calculated. "Surveillance can be tiring."

Scott turned a deep red colour. "I… err… I wasn't following you," he stuttered, though he knew she wouldn't need supernatural powers to tell he was lying.

She raised an eyebrow, looking unimpressed. "Of course not. It was a coincidence that I saw your bike parked on the street when I came out of the bookshop, the dry-cleaners, _and_ Starbucks. Now you're hanging around in the carpark behind my flat for no reason. Or maybe you want something?"

Scott cringed, wondering in vain why they hadn't asked the FBI agent amongst them to undertake the surveillance mission. Still, curiosity got the better of him, and before he could stop himself he said, "What are you?"

Her face remained neutral. "I'm Morinna."

Scott narrowed his eyes, working through something in his mind. The closest creature to a Morinna he could think of was, hilariously, a morinji-no-okama, a talking kettle he had found in a children's picture book of Japanese mythology that he had read after he met Kira. He gave up any hope of guessing what she was and asked, "What's a Morinna?"

"It's my name," Morinna said impatiently, making him feel like an idiot, suddenly darting forward to thrust the mug into his hands, hot coffee splashing over the sides. "Return the mug to 6B when you're bored of stalking me. If you want milk or sugar then you have to come and get it yourself."

She turned back the way she had come, walking back round the side of the building, her hair rippling in the breeze.

"You're not, like, _dangerous,_ are you?" he called after her as an afterthought.

Morinna looked over her shoulder, annoyed. "I'm five feet tall and inviting you into my home, shouldn't I be asking you that?" she retorted, disappearing around the corner.

Scott swallowed. The mug was hot in his hands, very hot, especially in the summer air. All he was now was confused and more than a little embarrassed. Still, he may not have Stiles' specific training but he was sure that very few murderers offered coffee to their victims first, so he decided to take his chances and follow her.

The apartment building was almost identical to Derek's, likely built by the same company, and had the same unfriendly atmosphere. Scott, stood in the rickety elevator, felt like he was in some kind of echoing warehouse. Like everything else he had seen, the building told him very little about Morinna.

Her door was at the very end of the corridor that the elevator doors opened onto. There were absolutely no distinguishing features here either; the door painted a uniform red with _6B_ in gold metal lettering, identical to every other door in the building save the number. When he knocked he was surprised to find that the door had been left slightly ajar and creaked open slowly.

Morinna was sat at the breakfast bar, directly opposite the door. She had tied her hair up into a ponytail and was looking down at a paperback book, her own navy-white striped mug of coffee next to her. The apartment seemed airy and empty, with the furniture he could see spaced far apart. Facing the television sat a low blue couch, scattered with purple floral cushions, and a coffee table with a few magazines on it. The kitchen units were glossy and black, modern, and there was very little decoration anywhere except for about a dozen electric tealights, propped up in candelabras and quartz holders.

"Sugar is in the cat," Morinna said, unmoving. "Milk in the fridge."

Scott had no idea what she was talking about for a moment, until he set eyes on a terracotta cat on the kitchen surface behind her. _Sugar is in the cat_ – right. The coffee.

He shut the door gently, and warily walked to the kitchen. He couldn't hear anyone else in the apartment, which reassured him slightly.

"Cat person?" he said in a weak attempt at small talk, opening the sugar jar to find a spoon already inside.

"Well, I'm certainly not a dog person," Morinna said casually, flicking a strand of hair over her shoulder.

Scott froze, wondering if this was a hint – or even a threat. Morinna didn't elaborate, so he dumped the sugar into his coffee and went to sit down next to her.

Morinna finally looked up from her book. "You never told me your name," she said disapprovingly. "Very impolite."

"It's Scott," he said after a pause. He felt like a fly in a spider web, like no matter what he did he would make things worse. "You have an accent. _And_ you're not human."

Morinna looked thoughtful, raising her cup to take a sip. "Am I not?" she said as if talking to herself. "Are _you_ a human?"

Scott looked taken aback. "Yes! I mean, I think so? Mostly?"

Now he was doubting it. He had always considered himself a human, even when he turned. The werewolf thing was like an extension to him, in his mind. Kind of like a job title that he couldn't get rid of.

Morinna smiled knowingly, watching him succumb to the existential crisis she had agonised over for a month. "You're human, sure. Except for when you're hurt, and you heal in seconds. Except for when you can smell how somebody is feeling. Except for when you turn into a wolf. Except for when it _matters_."

Scott flinched at her deadpan voice. "So, you figured that one out. Right. You've met wolves before, then?"

Morinna grinned salaciously, as if she had a whole host of stories she could tell him. "I've… encountered them, yes. In London, which is where the accent is from, by the way. To be perfectly honest, Scott, all of them seem to be quite rude. You're the politest I've ever met, and even _you_ followed me around all day without so much as an introduction."

"What did the others do?" Scott asked incredulously, already feeling ashamed of his own behaviour.

"Tried to kill me," she said simply. "Amongst other things."

"Why?" he asked, putting his drink down. It would be foolish of him not to acknowledge that she must have done something to inspire the hatred of other wolves.

"Why did you follow me? You perceive me as a threat, don't you, Scott?" Morinna asked, looking at him sadly. "Because you're not sure what I am, so I'm dangerous. And you're here to neutralise the risk."

She spoke like she had heard the words before, like she was repeating a mantra.

"I'm not here to kill you!" Scott objected, looking hurt. This unnerved Morinna. "I don't kill things. Only when there's no other option. What are you, though, if you don't mind me asking?"

Morinna regarded him, trying to figure him out. "I don't know," she said finally.

Scott listened for a slight skip, a slight change in heart rate, something that would tell him she was lying. He heard nothing.

Nothing at all.

"You don't have a heart beat!" he exclaimed, jumping up from the bar stool. It clattered onto the hardwood floor, bouncing loudly. Morinna didn't even flinch.

Instead she rolled her eyes. "Yes, I do," she said, sounding bored. "Give me your hand."

Scott tentatively held his hand out, suspicious. Morinna took it gently in her own – they were tiny and very, very cold – and pressed it to her chest. It felt weirdly intimate; Scott could feel the curve of her breasts under his hand, the sharp edge of her collar bone, and, finally, after over ten seconds, the lethargic beat of her heart. Only once.

"How often does it beat?" he whispered, fascinated, leaning in to put an ear to her chest before remembering how inappropriate that would be.

Morinna stared at him evenly and then dropped his hand. "Once a minute, maybe," she said, sounding disinterested. "I haven't counted."

"But you don't know what you are?" he clarified.

She cast her eyes down. "I have a hypothesis. I'm not quite ready to share it yet."

/Hang Me Up to Dry by The Cold War Kids

It had been so long since she'd been here, in Scott's house. It felt strangely comforting, even though a serious pack meeting was the last thing Malia had wanted when she got back from Paris.

Something about being back here, where she had fallen in lo – well, where she had discovered some _feelings_ for Scott, relaxed her; it made her feel like she had never left, and they were right back in the summer of last year and nothing at all had changed. It seemed to relax Scott too, as he had been hovering close to her since she arrived and they were somehow now sharing the armchair.

Lydia was curled up on the couch, head in Stiles' lap as he stroked her hair. She was exhausted from her episode earlier, and more than a little bit upset that it had happened at all. Malia knew that Lydia hated feeling like she wasn't in control. Party planning with her was a nightmare.

Mason and Liam were sat on the floor, sharing a bag of chips. Mason seemed like the only one who was excited to be here, practically bouncing where he sat, a stark contrast to Liam who was forlorn. Hayden had called him that morning to let him know she was seeing someone. They had given up on attempting a long distance relationship a year ago, six months after she had moved away, but it still felt like a punch in the throat.

"So," Scott began, falling naturally back into the role of leader. "I'll get straight to the point. Lydia's powers led her to a girl in the diner today. It's probably nothing to worry about, but I thought I'd call a pack meeting so we can address it now. Then we can go back to a nice, normal summer."

"A girl?" Mason echoed, hungry for a fresh mystery. "Like, a girl who's gonna die?"

Everyone looked at Lydia for clarification, Stiles nudging her gently so she would open her eyes. She blinked for a moment, shrinking away from the eyes on her.

"I don't know," Lydia said reluctantly, propping herself up on her elbow. "Usually I get… that _feeling,_ and it gets worse until I can't hold the scream back. But it's constant with her, so I don't know. It's like she's close to death, but not dying."

Five pairs of eyes stared blankly at her.

"Helpful," said Malia, sick of all the complexities.

Huffing in defeat, Lydia collapsed back into Stiles' lap, closing her eyes again. Stiles resumed stroking her hair, staring down at her with concern.

"Well, I went to speak to her," said Scott, surprising Malia who was pretty certain that the hurried plan they had agreed on in the diner had been covert surveillance. "She's not human, but she didn't seem dangerous. She's called Morinna, she's eighteen and she moved here from England a month ago. Doesn't seem to have anyone else with her, and she didn't do anything weird the whole time I saw her. One thing, though - her heart. It was barely beating."

"If she's not human then what is she?" asked Malia impatiently. "And she's young – a year younger than us. Where are her parents? Are _they_ human?"

Scott wrinkled his nose. "… I don't know," he admitted. "I'm pretty certain she lives alone. She didn't want to talk for very long. I'm not sure if _she_ even knows what she is, though she definitely knows she's something. She knew I was a wolf right away."

He almost told them what she had said about wolves trying to kill her, but decided against it. Scott didn't know what she had done to become a target, but there was something about her – naivety. She would have fit right into high school with them. He didn't think it would be fair for the others to be overly suspicious of her.

"So, what do we do now?" asked Liam, crossing his arms.

"Go to Deaton, I guess? Or just make sure she doesn't kill anyone?" Scott said, blowing his cheeks out comically. "I don't know. Lydia, if it's alright with you, could you come back with me tomorrow and talk to her? Maybe you'll figure out more than I did."

Lydia scrunched up her face in revulsion, eyes still closed.

"Absolutely not," said Stiles, putting an arm over her protectively. "Lydia was with her for two minutes earlier and look at her now! It's not worth it."

"I'll do it," Lydia said in a small voice, grimacing. " _If_ you all talk more quietly. I have a headache."

Absent-mindedly, Liam reached up behind him to put a hand on her forehead, inky tendrils snaking up his arm.

She sighed in contentment. "You're an angel," she breathed, her features relaxing.

"I'm taking Lydia home," Stiles announced firmly, frowning at the black veins on Liam's hand.

Scott gave a little noise of exasperation, audible only to Malia. She squeezed his upper arm gently, understanding his annoyance.

"Fine," he said, running his fingers through his hair. "I hope you feel better soon, Lydia. Liam, Morinna lives around the corner from you. I'll text you the address, can you check she's still there every few hours? And Malia and I will go see Deaton. Okay, meeting's over."

Liam and Mason glanced at each other. They were both painfully aware that the atmosphere had changed since they had all moved away. It was like putting a coat on in a blizzard and then being forced to take it off – a respite from suffering had made them all terrified of losing their good fortunes. Liam had been enjoying a mostly normal year despite his canine qualities – a couple of run-ins with some goblins who particularly enjoyed stealing beloved household pets, but his biggest challenge had always been the lacrosse league – and even he felt inconvenienced by the appearance of Morinna. He couldn't imagine how everyone else felt, having been so removed from Beacon Hills and all the craziness that accompanied it. It was like walking back on to a battlefield.

Mason seemed to be the only one excited to be back in the game, and he was just desperate to feel useful. He jumped to his feet and held a hand out to Liam.

"We're getting pizza if anyone wants to come," he said, picking up his sweatshirt.

"I might catch you up," said Malia. She wasn't one to turn down pizza, and she was actually hungry, but she was also distracted. Scott hadn't been himself for the whole meeting. She knew he felt like he had lost his grip on the pack.

"We'll see you tomorrow," Stiles said, staring down at Lydia with concern. "Come on, Lyds, I'm putting you to bed."

Lydia groaned and began to stand up.

"She can sleep here if she wants," Scott offered, but he was met with an even louder groan from Lydia.

"We're good, bud," chuckled Stiles, holding up his girlfriend and walking her towards the front door. "Say hi to your mom for me."

"I will," Scott said as the door shut, leaving him and Malia sat next to each other. They regarded each other for a moment, Scott cocking his head. He could see that Malia had a plan.

"You seem stressed," she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

Scott smiled that lopsided grin she loved so much. "Do I?"

Malia didn't answer. Shrugging, she leaned over and kissed him firmly on the mouth. Scott sank into her lips, sighing.

"I'll help you relax, don't worry."

/In My Veins by Andrew Belle

Lydia wasn't sleeping.

She was lying down, certainly, curled up on her side with Stiles arched around her, his arm around her waist and nose in her hair. It was soft, he observed, and smelled like strawberries. He loved that smell.

As soon as they had got to her house, Stiles had made her drink a glass of water, take some painkillers, and then put her to bed. It was still light out, but he had shut the curtains and got in beside her.

Stiles didn't hope to sleep, of course. It was way too early, and he was a seasoned insomniac. But Lydia… she had been exhausted that she could barely keep her eyes open. Yet here she was, pretending to sleep. It was a pretty convincing impression, too, but Stiles knew better. She had a knot of tension between her eyebrows, something he knew disappeared when she was sleeping, and, surreptitiously, she had two fingers over the pulse in her neck.

"Lydia," Stiles whispered. "What are you doing?"

There was a pause as she stopped breathing for a moment.

"Sleeping," came the eventual reply, muffled by her pillow.

Stiles nuzzled into the back of her neck. "You're taking your pulse. Is something wrong?"

"No," she said, moving her hand away. He could hear her heart in the quiet still of the room, and it sounded normal.

"Is it banshee stuff?" he asked, feeling his girlfriend stiffen at his words. "You can tell me, Lyds, we'll deal with it together."

She took a shaky breath. "It's nothing," she said, but Stiles heard her breath hitching slightly.

"Hey, hey, hey," he murmured, propping himself up with one arm and using the other to roll her towards him. He immediately spotted the glisten of a tear on one cheek. "What's going on?"

Stiles rested his elbows either side of her head so that he loomed over her, wiping at the tear with his thumb.

Lydia opened her watery eyes, looking past him. "I'm sorry," she said, sounding strangled.

"What for, silly?" Stiles said, stroking her hair out of her face. "Talk to me, Lyds."

She shuddered. "I'm being stupid. I just… I keep thinking I hear a heartbeat."

"A heartbeat?" Stiles repeated, processing this. "Okay. Maybe it's something to do with Morinna? You know Scott was saying her heart didn't beat very fast. Nothing to worry about, Lydia."

She wouldn't look him in the eyes, swallowing hard. "You should go," she said, turning away from him. "You shouldn't have to deal with this."

"Don't be ridiculous," he said, sounding a little hurt. "I'm not leaving."

As if to prove his point, he wrapped his arm back around her. Suddenly snapping, Lydia, pulled his hand off of her and stood up abruptly, stalking over to the window. Stiles sat up, rubbing his shoulder where she had pulled it.

"I'm serious, go," she repeated, her voice hard and cold. She stood as if she was staring out at the street outside, arms folded, but the curtains were still drawn, light spilling through the white cotton fabric.

"Lydia, what's going on with you? Talk to me, I can handle it!"

He immediately felt bad for raising his voice. Silhouetted against the window, he could see Lydia's shoulders shaking with suppressed emotion.

"No, Stiles. You were meant to have a normal summer. I'm ruining it over some dumb girl in a diner who made me _almost_ want to scream. You don't have to deal with all this," she said, sounding utterly defeated.

He rose from the bed and stood behind her, wrapping his arms back around her and resting his chin.

"I don't care, Lydia," he said gently, imploring her to understand. "I want to be with you. No matter what comes with it, no matter what we have to face, you're the one I want to be with."

Lydia leant her head back on his shoulder, a fresh tear sliding down her swollen cheek.


	4. Chapter 4

/Bury by Unions

Liam had never even seen the girl he was supposed to be keeping an eye on, but he picked out her scent from the others in the area quite easily based on Scott's description. It was a little bit like toffee, saccharine, but with a harder edge. She was definitely in the building.

He tried to pick out what she was doing from the hum of activity around him. Several people were cooking; he could hear water bubbling away on a stovetop and smell the aromas of different cuisines, heavy spices from one apartment and the unmistakable vanilla scent of a baking cake. He recognised the voices of Joey and Chandler bickering on a _Friends_ rerun somewhere, and then noticed with annoyance that someone else in the building was watching the same thing with a three second lag. The clicking sound of knitting needles emanated from the ground floor, accompanied by a cacophony of tapping and clicking noises from the whole building: keyboards, trackpads, nails on a phone screen. Nothing suspicious, and nothing inhuman.

Then he heard a tiny sob.

It sounded very much like somebody trying not to make a scene while crying, hopeless and restrained. The pitch was that of a woman, a fairly young one, though probably not a child. Somewhere around his age – so perhaps Morinna.

Suddenly, like someone had opened a bottle of bleach, the scent of blood filled his senses. Liam stood up, alert, wondering if she had been hurt. The smell was strong, too much for a papercut. He could hear her whimpering and gasping still, and Liam racked his brains to try and remember if Scott had given him an apartment number, wondering how he would break in without attracting the attention of her neighbours.

Then, six floors up, a figure came to the window. She had long, honey coloured hair and extremely pale skin, contrasted by the scarlet colour of her lips. She was holding a mug, and Liam could see a tear caught in the moonlight. _This must be Morinna_ , he thought, connecting her to the vague description he had, and from what he could see she wasn't hurt. He couldn't hear anything that suggested anything untoward; there were no distressed heartbeats or other signs that somebody else was hurt. Perhaps the bloody smell had been someone cooking some extremely fresh steak.

For a moment, Liam thought that Morinna was looking straight at him. He flinched. She didn't react, and after a moment stepped away from the glass.

Liam turned around and began to walk home.

/Give up the Ghost by Rosi Golan

Lydia felt even worse in the morning.

Usually she prided herself on her stoicism; when she cried she did it alone, and she knew how to apply concealer and red lipstick and stare defiantly at everybody who looked to closely at her as if to say " _I dare you. I know you can see I've been crying. I fucking dare you to say something."_

Nobody ever did say anything, because she was Lydia Martin and she wasn't weak.

She could count all the times she had cried in front of other people on her fingers: a couple of mortifying times in front of Stiles when she barely knew him; in class, mid-banshee episode where she wasn't really accountable for her actions; a smattering of times in front of Jackson, as he had undone everything she thought she knew about herself and left her a broken little girl; when Scott had been stood in the puddle of gasoline, a sparking flare in his fist; when she had finally realised that the empty space in her chest was Stiles, and she couldn't even remember his face. All justifiable and serious; Lydia wasn't a cry-at-the-commercials kind of girl.

But now? Now she was crying over a thirty second fugue state without even finding a body at the end of it.

Stiles wasn't helping, either. He probably thought he was, which was worse, because Lydia didn't have the heart to stop him. She had woken up, embarrassed, to find him making blueberry pancakes in the kitchen for her. This meant she felt even more guilty.

She didn't know if it was a blessing or a curse that Stiles would never forget when she cried.

It was _definitely_ a curse that she couldn't even manage to stop.

Her pillow had mascara stains on it, from where Stiles had put her straight to bed and she had been too tired to consider trivial things like taking off her makeup before weeping all night. She had gone downstairs in the morning and found him stood at the stove wearing his _Beacon Hills Lacrosse_ shirt, straining across the chest now after the FBI training had seriously filled him out, and burst into tears again. He hadn't said anything, just wiped her tears with kitchen roll and poured her a coffee. Mercifully, he hadn't been in the shower with her to see her silently crying there too.

She felt crushed. Right at the beginning of their perfect summer and she had already ruined it.

They were curled up on her bed, on top of the lavender comforter, facing each other and somehow exhausted only an hour after waking.

"What are you thinking? Right this second?" Stiles asked softly, reaching across to brush her hair out of her face. He looked worried but collected.

"That my eyes must be really puffy right now," Lydia said, her voice empty.

Stiles smiled sadly. "Why are you crying so much? Talk me through it."

Lydia sniffed, thinking. "I didn't mean to freak out. I'm sorry. I just… I just really hate all this banshee stuff. Everything is perfect, and then suddenly I blink and I'm somewhere new and something terrible has happened. It's like I don't have control over my life anymore."

Stiles nodded, but didn't say anything. Lydia knew what he was doing; her therapists in the past had done the same thing. He was waiting for the silence to become uncomfortable, so that Lydia would feel the need to fill it with something and end up saying more than she had intended. He had probably learnt it during his FBI training. It was certainly a useful technique for interrogations.

She resisted talking for about ten seconds, thinking things through. And then she decided to be honest with him, the way she hadn't been every time she had woken up somewhere stupid in Massachusetts and gone home to cry about it in private.

"I'm just a little bit bitter, because everyone got to go away to school and start over and they only had to be different when they wanted to be. But I didn't get a choice. I can't turn it off. Six times, Stiles, I found myself in the middle of the woods or a park or even down some alleyway, barefoot and totally lost with a corpse at my feet. I missed my differential equations final because the police found me wandering around, totally catatonic, and tried to have me sectioned. Even when I'm not in a fugue state, I'm having nightmare after nightmare and I can't even tell what is an omen and what is just me freaking myself out. And now I've dragged you into another mystery, the _day_ after we got back for the summer, and it's probably nothing but now we're worried again. It all comes back to me, Stiles. I brought Peter back. I cause most of our problems, and I don't understand why you all keep me around," she said, focusing her eyes very pointedly on the stitching of her comforter because, no matter how much she was willing to share with Stiles, she still felt awkward acknowledging when she was feeling sorry for herself.

Stiles' amber eyes were big and emotive, though Lydia wasn't sure if they showed sorrow or pity.

"How long have you felt this way?" he said eventually, and Lydia had to close her eyes to try and hold back more tears.

"Please don't, Stiles," she said. "Please don't turn therapist on me."

A muscle twitched in his jaw. "I don't know how I'm meant to help," he said hopelessly. "You know it's not true, don't you? You know we don't blame you for a second. If anything, _I_ caused this by forcing Scott to come hunting for bodies in the woods with me. And even if you had caused it, you'd be worth it. We'd never give up on you."

"Maybe you should."

"Don't say that," he said sharply. "Stop trying to push us away, Lydia. It won't work. It sucks that you don't get to control your powers the way that the others do, but the way to deal with it is for us to support you, and you know we always will. And sure, maybe it was nice going for a few months without any supernatural stuff, but I've never felt more alive than when I've been solving mysteries with you. I know I had a crush on you since the third grade, but I fell in love with you while we were investigating the motel. I _realised_ I was in love with you when I saw you through the glass of a door, taped to a chair with a garotte around your neck. This is who we are, Lydia. We were meant to do this."

A tear escaped from the corner of her eye, soaking into the pillow.

"I love you, Stiles," Lydia said. She leaned forward to kiss him, tangling her fingers in his hair, heart aching at how important he was to her, never wanting to let go of him. His hands dropped to her waist, pulling her ever closer.

/Monsters by Ruelle

There was a weird atmosphere in the jeep when Stiles and Lydia came to pick Scott up.

Lydia was still tired, he could see, because she was leaning her head back on the seat in a way that looked like it would only be comfortable if you could literally not support your own skull. But she also seemed to be glowing, and calmly happy. Almost serene. She looked a lot better than she had yesterday.

And Stiles… Stiles seemed _measured_. Scott wasn't sure if this was a result of FBI training or just generally growing up, but the goofy Stiles he remembered didn't seem to be here. He certainly didn't look like he would be cracking jokes every few minutes, and he wasn't bouncing with excitement the way he usually did before they went off to investigate something. If anything, Scott thought he could detect a hint of annoyance or frustration.

"Hey, Scottie," Stiles said as his friend slid into the back seat of the car. "You okay?"

Scott nodded, taking Lydia's hand as she reached back to squeeze his in greeting. His eyes flickered between the two of them. He couldn't quite figure it out. Lydia seemed relaxed and content, like some great conflict had been resolved, but Stiles was acting like they were still right in the middle of one.

"Yeah," Scott said slowly. "Are you?"

Stiles nodded, pulling out of the drive way and onto the street.

"I'm not really happy with this," he admitted, looking at Scott in the rear-view mirror as he reversed. "Lydia insisted we come, but I think she needs a break from this sort of thing."

"I can have a break when this is resolved," Lydia said in a hard voice. "I don't need to be babied."

Stiles didn't respond, turning the car back up the street. "Where are we going, Scott?"

"Err, Beechtree. Drive towards Liam's and I'll point it out," Scott said distractedly, still trying to read the situation. "Lydia, we don't have to –" he began, trailing off when Lydia whipped her head around to glare at him over the back of her seat.

Nobody said a word as they drove towards Morinna's building, the silence only being broken by the simple words _left here_.

When they arrived at the front of the building, Morinna buzzed them up before they had even spoken into the intercom. Scott wondered if she had been looking out for them, though he hadn't actually told her they were coming.

Like it had been when Scott had visited alone, Morinna's door was slightly ajar and when he pushed it open he could see her in the kitchen, four mugs in front of her and the coffee maker pouring.

"Come in," she said coolly, leaning against the counter. "I'm afraid I don't have much seating. I don't entertain often, you see. But I'm sure we'll figure it out."

Lydia narrowed her eyes, her hand hovering conspicuously over her throat, but followed Scott into the small apartment and let Stiles help her onto one of the bar stools.

"Lydia and Stiles, meet Morinna. Who was expecting us, apparently," Scott said, watching as she poured coffee into the mugs.

"I figured you'd show up again fairly soon," Morinna said primly. "Milk, sugar?"

"Just milk, please, for both of us," Stiles said, hovering behind Lydia.

Morinna stepped back from the counter, walking towards the small refrigerator, revealing her full outfit. She seemed rather dressed up; a form-fitting green velvet camisole with narrow straps and a full cream coloured floral skirt, little velvet slippers that looked almost like ballet shoes on her feet.

"Sorry, were you going out?" asked Scott, regarding the thick gold band around her neck.

Morinna looked at him blankly and then glanced down at her outfit. "No," she said simply, unscrewing the top of the milk.

Stiles, meanwhile, was looking around the apartment appraisingly.

"Have you just moved in?" he asked, scanning the blank walls.

"Three weeks ago," Morinna said, pushing coffee towards him and Lydia.

"And you're not quite unpacked?"

Morinna gave him a strange look. "No, I'm unpacked."

"Interesting," said Stiles, mostly to himself. There was nothing personal in the room – no books, no photographs. It was the sort of room that a psychologist would have a lot to say about.

Scott accepted the mug she held out to him and smiled at Morinna. "Sorry to drop in on you unannounced," he said. "But I went to a guy I know to try and figure out more about you. I didn't have a lot to go off."

Morinna cocked an eyebrow, as if to say _yes, that was my intention_. She turned to face Lydia, leaning on the counter opposite her.

"I'm interested in _you_ ," she said, watching with amusement as Stiles put a protective hand on Lydia's shoulder. "What was that in the diner? 'Stiles, I want to scream' and all that? I don't usually inspire such a reaction."

Lydia pursed her lips. "I'm not totally sure."

"Here's my prediction," Morinna said, looking at her calculatingly. "You can sense when someone isn't human. Which would make you… what? A psychic?"

"It's not quite like that," Lydia said, putting her drink down. "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

Scott grinned. They were finally getting somewhere.

Morinna raised her eyebrows, mildly surprised, mulling over the idea. "I don't actually know entirely what I am," she warned. "I told Scott that yesterday. But I'll tell you things that I _do_ know." She waited for a cautious nod before proceeding with her first question. "Well, seeing as _you_ apparently know, what are you?"

"A banshee."

"No way," Morinna said, actually sounding interested. "Like, the wailing woman, Irish folklore, part fae, omen of death kind of banshee?"

"My turn," Lydia said coldly. "What makes you different to a normal human?"

Morinna scowled. "I'm stronger. Less fragile. Do you know when people are going to die?"

"That was evasive," Lydia commented. "And yes. I feel the need to scream when people are going to die, and then I scream when they do die. Do you have any special powers?"

"Some," Morinna said obliquely. She suddenly looked directly at Stiles. "You. _Stiles_. Squats, now," she purred, and to his friends' horror Stiles immediately dropped into a squat, beginning the exercise.

Lydia yanked him up by his arm, and he stood there, looking around himself bewilderedly. She looked at Morinna venomously.

"No more of… _that_ , please, Morinna," Scott said, sounding angry.

" _She_ asked. He'll be confused for about ten more seconds," Morinna said casually. "But no harm done. Now, this has been bothering me since you said it. If you scream for death, why did you want to scream for me? Am I dying?"

She spoke with a perverse sort of fascination, almost as if she wouldn't be displeased if Lydia told her she would be dropping dead in about thirty seconds.

"Did I just do a squat?" Stiles asked incredulously, looking down at his own torso like it was foreign to him. Lydia patted him on the arm reassuringly, slipping her hand into his.

"You might be dying," she said frostily, the callousness of her response testament to the fact that she was clearly still annoyed that Morinna had used her boyfriend as a puppet. "But I'm not sure. Usually it gets worse the closer you are to death. Right now, the urge to scream is exactly the same as it was in the diner. It's like you were dying, but it was paused."

"Not entirely surprising," Morinna said, taking a sip of coffee. "I do seem rather close to death, don't I? Heart not beating very much, always very cold and pale. Practically zombie-like."

"You're not a zombie," Stiles said very quickly, and everyone turned to look at him. "I – I asked Deaton when I found out who he was. It was one of the first things I asked. Zombies aren't real."

Scott snorted at this. "Of course you did," he muttered, shaking his head. "Morinna, were you born like this?"

"No. It happened a year ago," she said, turning back to Lydia. "What about you?"

Lydia shrugged, speaking carefully. "I was born this way," she said, "but my powers weren't… _activated_ until a couple of years ago. When I was bitten by a wolf."

"You were bitten?" Morinna said in surprise. "How interesting. So was I."

"You were bitten by a werewolf?" Scott asked, leaning forward.

Morinna shook her head, suddenly very tense. "Not a wolf. Gosh, I'm so extraordinarily tired. Visitors really do take it out of me," she said stiffly, grabbing the mugs and turning to the sink to pour them away. "Thank you for coming. Have a good evening."

She stalked over to the front door and threw it open, standing against it expectantly.

They didn't argue.


	5. Chapter 5

/Big Black Car by Gregory Alan Isakov

By the time he got home, Scott felt even more tired than Lydia seemed. He had forgotten how draining it could be; having your mind on fifty things at once, constantly alert for the next threat, turning over different pieces of information in an effort to find answers.

He forgot all of this, though, when a familiar smell hit his nose.

Scott stopped in the entryway, dropping his helmet on the floor. He could hear clattering from the kitchen, the sound of pans clashing together. In disbelief, Scott walked slowly through the door.

Stood facing the counter, a gangly boy with a mop of dark curly hair was grating cheese. He had obviously heard Scott come in, and he turned around sheepishly.

"Hey… bro," Isaac said, giving him a shy smile. "I'm, err… I'm making lasagne."

Scott was gobsmacked.

"You're making _lasagne_?" he repeated. "You disappear for what, two years? Mom went crazy worrying about you. And now you're back and making _lasagne_?"

Isaac had the decency to look guilty. He looked different, Scott noticed. Older, though that was to be expected, but he had shaved off the sides of his dark hair and he was wearing a scuffed leather jacket.

"I'll admit, I probably should have told you I was leaving," he said. "But… I wasn't in a great place. You know that. I watched her die, Scott. I watched her die right in front of me."

Scott turned an angry shade of red. "So did I," he hissed, striding over to grab him by the collar. "She died in my arms. And I stayed. And I fought. Because it's what she would have wanted."

Isaac didn't try to fight him off. He bowed his head, submitting to his alpha.

"Say something," Scott demanded, shaking him. "Fucking _say_ something, Isaac."

"I'm sorry," Isaac said in a small voice. "I was a coward. And I shouldn't have run. Especially not for two years."

Scott released him, swallowing hard. "Where did you go, anyway?" he asked, voice still dangerous.

"Mexico, at first," Isaac said, rubbing his neck. "Alaska. Cuba. Canada, for a bit. Around."

"Doing what?"

"What I had to," Isaac said cryptically. "I've done some stuff I'm not proud of, Scott. And I'm not here to stay. I felt like I had to come back, but I can't stay here. Not forever."

Scott scowled at him. "Why not? This is your pack. This _was_ your pack."

"There's just," Isaac began, breathing in like it hurt him to speak. "There's just so much pain here, you know? And I never belonged to anything, here, not truly."

"Take that back," Scott ordered, voice low. "Take that back, right now. You were part of the pack. We would have done anything for you. My mom _fostered_ you, Isaac."

"I'm sorry," Isaac whispered, bowing his head in shame. "I just… I had to figure some shit out."

Scott looked at him evenly. Isaac tried to read his expression, wondering if he should leave. And then Scott opened his arms and Isaac accepted the hug, wrapping his arms around his brother and his alpha, and clung onto him with the hunger of somebody who hadn't been loved for many, many months. When a tear escaped Isaac's eye and soaked down into Scott's shirt, he didn't say anything; he held him tighter. And when Melissa arrived five minutes later, laden with groceries, and found her two sons holding onto each other for dear life in the middle of her kitchen, she dropped her bags and kissed Isaac's face over and over again, thanking the universe for bringing him back to her, and nobody noticed the smashed eggs on the tile.

/Three Wishes by The Pierces

A day shift. Melissa wasn't accustomed to such luxury; seeing her efficiency, the head of the ER put her on late shifts without fail. But by some miracle this was her third daytime shift of the week. 8am to 4pm on a Monday, a quiet stretch of eight hours before all the alcohol related injuries and violent crimes she was used to dealing with in the evenings began to pile through the doors.

Melissa had only processed twelve patients in the two hours she'd been on shift; one allergic reaction, three children with sports injuries, two people who couldn't keep water or food down, three elderly people who had fallen, one stressed businessman with chest pains and a woman who "just felt funny". She was in a dazzlingly bright mood, making conversation with all her patients and chasing up lab results with infinite patience.

Then Lydia walked through the doors, and Melissa remembered that a quiet life had never been her destiny.

"Lydia?" she had called when she had spotted the strawberry blonde ambling through the doors.

She was quite a sight to behold. Lydia was wearing silky pink pyjamas, only lace covering her breasts, and a champagne coloured silk robe which was hanging open, the cord trailing behind her with a conspicuously muddy end. She had a full face of makeup on, complete with a deep purple-pink lip, and her long hair was hanging around her shoulders. Only half of it was curled; the other side hung in relaxed waves, as if she had not finished styling it. Her feet were bare, flecked with mud and, to Melissa's horror, leaving faint bloody footprints on the polished linoleum floor.

As Melissa had expected, Lydia's eyes were glassy and she did not react to her name being called. She traipsed through the lobby almost robotically, garnering some strange looks from the few people waiting, and walked straight past Melissa without looking at her.

There was no point trying to wake her from a fugue state. She'd do it naturally when she had walked to wherever she needed to go. So, Melissa followed her. She walked closely beside Lydia, so that anyone who saw them would just see a nurse delivering a slightly dishevelled patient to a room, and pulled her phone out of her pocket to call Scott.

"Mom?" he said on the third ring. "Are you okay?"

"Mmhm," Melissa replied, watching Lydia closely. They continued to the end of the hall, showing no signs of turning off into one of the rooms. "I'm fine. I'm at work and – well, Lydia's here."

"Is she hurt?"

"I'm not sure. She's in a fugue, Scott, so I'm following her."

"So, she was led to the hospital? What does she want there? Are there any supernatural patients, or... or someone she might know?"

"Not off the top of my head," Melissa said, rounding the corner with her target. "There's only offices and storage on this part of the corridor. I can't imagine where we're headed."

"I'm going to jump on my motorbike and see you in five minutes, okay?"

"Okay, sweetie," she said. They neared the double doors at the end of the corridor and she suddenly realised that they must be headed to the stairwell.

Sure enough, Lydia pushed the doors open and stepped through. Melissa sort of wished that fugue-state Lydia had taken the elevator, and silently prayed that the only had to go up one or two floors.

They didn't. They were going… down?

"Where are you taking me?" Melissa asked jokingly, not anticipating a reply. There was something extraordinarily creepy about following a bedraggled teenage girl down some back stairs, especially one who had no idea she was there.

Only the morgue and some storage rooms were in the basement. Melissa hoped they could avoid the morgue. She had had enough bad experiences in there to last a lifetime.

To her great relief, Lydia walked right past it. Suddenly she made a sharp left, trying the handle on the door. It was, of course, locked. Lydia stepped back, taking a deep breath and holding her hands up. Melissa realised almost too late what she was doing, and smacked her key card against the reader and flung the door open before the banshee could scream it down. Melissa had managed to keep suspicion about the antics of the town's supernaturals to a minimum before, but she wasn't quite sure how she'd explain that amount of damage to her boss.

Lydia dropped her arms and walked through to door, crossing the room to the huge refrigerated chests pushed against the opposite wall. She slid the top open and reached in.

Melissa realised with a start that they were in the blood bank.

Lydia emerged with an armful of plasma. She must have been holding seven or eight pints of blood in little plastic packets, her face still blank. Turning around to face the door again, Lydia stopped and swayed for a moment.

Melissa had the foresight to dash forward and catch her when she went slack, the blood bags scattering around her and making sickening smacking noises as they hit the ground. Mercifully, only one of them burst.

Carefully, Melissa lowered Lydia to the ground, kneeling and supporting Lydia's head with her hand. She checked her pulse quickly, then checked her eyelids to find her pupils unfocused but not dilated. She had fainted, but didn't seem to be in any serious danger. Still keeping her head from the hard ground, Melissa decided to pick up the extra blood bags and put them back into the refrigerator in case somebody else came into the room.

Scott arrived just as Lydia was coming around.

"Oh my god," he cried out, leaping across the room and dropping to his knees. "Lydia, oh my god!"

Melissa wasn't sure why he seemed so shaken, until she realised that the burst blood bag had splashed and soaked Lydia's silken sleepwear quite spectacularly.

"She's not hurt, she's not hurt," she said quickly, touching her son's arm reassuringly. "It's a blood bag, it broke."

Lydia's eyes flickered open. Dazed, she put a hand to her stomach, feeling the sodden fabric.

"Is that me?" she asked, slurring her words.

"It's not your blood, Lydia, you're okay," Melissa said.

"Is that me?" Lydia repeated.

Melissa and Scott looked at each other, concerned.

"Can you hear me, Lydia?" Melissa said in a loud, clear voice.

"Can you hear it?" Lydia asked. "Is it me? Is it mine?"

Melissa chewed her lip.

"Can you carry her, for me, Scott?" she asked. "I think her feet are cut."

Lydia shook her head, still glassy eyed. "No, no, no, can you hear it?" she babbled, reaching out weakly with her hands. She managed a limp grasp on Scott's UC Davis sweatshirt, but lost it almost immediately. "I think it's me. It's slowing down. I think I'm dying."

/Glass Heart by Sam Tinnesz

Stiles burst through the doors, skidding on the floor in his tennis shoes. He arrived just in time to see Melissa and Scott rounding the corner at the end of the corridor, Scott hold a struggling Lydia in his arms. Their faces were pale and grim, Scott giving him a nod of acknowledgement as he paused for Melissa to open the door of one of the hospital rooms.

He could swear that a bright bloom of scarlet was splayed across her stomach like a poppy.

Stiles felt sick. He broke out running again, stumbling across the slippery floor towards them. Scott deposited a writhing Lydia onto the hospital bed, Melissa immediately hooking her up to a heart monitor. Her heart was beating at 120 bpm.

"It's slowing down," Lydia wailed. "It's stopping, it's stopping. I'm dying. I need him, I need Stiles."

He pushed Scott out the way, throwing himself at her, seizing her hands in his. "Lydia, Lydia, I'm here," he cried out, looking desperately between her blood-soaked clothing and her pale face. "What's wrong with her?" he demanded, whipping his head up to look at Melissa.

"Her heart is a little fast, and her blood pressure is too high. She's panicking herself, she needs to calm down. The blood – it's not her blood, Stiles."

He didn't bother asking where it had come from. "Lydia, what can I do?" he crooned. "What do you mean you're dying?"

"My heart," she said weakly, grasping the front of his shirt. "It's slowing down. It's stopping. I'm going to die, Stiles."

Melissa was looking between the heart monitor and its printout with intense concentration. "It's speeding up, Stiles. It's dangerous. I need to sedate her or she'll have a heart attack."

He clenched his jaw. "Keep her alive, Melissa," he said. "Don't you let her die."

She nodded gravely, turning to the cabinet behind her.

"Stiles," Scott said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Stiles – Morinna."

Stiles scowled. "Not the time, Scott," he said, wiping a mascara stained tear from Lydia's cheek.

Melissa returned with a needle, gripping Lydia's limp wrist to steady her arm. "I'm sorry, sweetie, I have to," she said consolingly, plunging the sharp tip into Lydia's upper arm.

Lydia moaned quietly, dropping her hand from Stiles' chest. Her eyes became heavy lidded, her face slack.

"Stiles, I think this is linked to Morinna," Scott tried again. "Morinna's heart – it's so slow that it barely beats. Maybe that's going to happen to Lydia. Maybe she's turning into… into whatever Morinna is."

Stiles head snapped up. "You think so?" he said sharply.

"Lydia's a banshee. If I trusted a premonition it would be hers," Scott pointed out.

Stiles stared at him for a moment, and then turned back to kiss Lydia on the forehead.

He stood up and stormed out of the hospital.


	6. Chapter 6

/Ophelia by Lena Fayre

"Don't you dare," Melissa said in a hard voice, watching her son move to follow Stiles.

Scott froze and turned around to see her stood in front of the cabinet, arms folded. "What?"

"You heard what Lydia said. She thinks she's dying! Stiles may be happy to leave her here while he settles a blood feud, but I'm not letting my own son leave her alone. I raised you better than that."

Scott looked at Lydia, seeming even smaller than usual in the hospital bed, and felt a pang of guilt. It had always been his first instinct to chase the lead, to dive straight towards the solution without lingering on the problem for too long. He hadn't considered what could happen if he had made a mistake, if this was nothing to do with Morinna at all: Lydia would die, alone, her mother in Milan and her closest friends two miles away.

"You're right," he conceded, sitting down in the uncomfortable plastic chair next to the bed and taking Lydia's hand. "Someone needs to be with her. I'll call Isaac."

Melissa gave him a small smile, pulling some paperwork out of the draw. "Good idea. Stiles is a smart kid, and an FBI agent now. He won't do anything stupid. Now, keep an eye on her heart monitor and buzz me if anything changes, I'm going to try and explain this to the duty doctor."

She walked towards the row of offices, where she knew Dr Price was sat, but following a hunch, Melissa walked past the doorway down the back staircase to the scene of the action. She still had a few hours to clean up the blood bank; there were individual blood stores throughout the hospital, replenished from the bank morning and evening, so nobody would be checking it until after her shift had ended. Nonetheless she scattered a liberal pile of paper towels over the quickly drying blood stain on the floor in case somebody walked in before she had time to clean properly.

Crossing the room to the refrigerators, Melissa picked up the clipboard used to sign blood in and out of the stores. Scanning the right hand column she saw that there should have been 40 packets left in the unit before the delivery tomorrow – minus the one that had exploded on the floor. Bracing against the cold, she plunged her hands into the chest.

Twenty-six.

Melissa had counted three times. There were only twenty-six packets of blood left.

/Bad Dream by Ruelle

Morinna knew he was coming.

She had been curled up in bed, smudging oil pastels in her sketchbook, when suddenly an image of him walking through her door appeared in her mind. _Intuition_ , she called it. It was like a shitty version of being psychic – she never discovered anything particularly important or far into the future, but she always knew when her phone was going to ring. It was an inoffensive talent.

He looked a little like a boy she used to know… the same upturned nose, big brown eyes, almost elfin features. _Stiles_ , she remembered. She had not been expecting any of them to return so soon, but she supposed it was unsurprising.

A glance out of the window confirmed her suspicions. Stiles was clambering out of an old blue jeep and walking towards the building.

Morinna shut her sketchbook, tucked it under her blue velvet pillow and walked into the living room, setting about the new routine that was quickly become a new ritual. Coffee machine on, front door pulled slightly open, anything incriminating carefully shut away. Just two mugs from the cupboard this time.

She assumed her position, leaning with her elbows on the counter and mug in her hand, watching the door.

Sure enough, it opened.

In fact, it burst open, slamming against the exposed brick behind it. Morinna straightened up, taken aback as Stiles invaded her apartment, heading straight for her.

"What did you do to her?" he roared, reaching the counter in three strides and making his way around it.

Morinna stepped back, dropping her mug on the floor. It smashed around her, china flying in all directions like a firework. She felt very, very cold.

"What do you mean?" she demanded, her stomach dropping. She stepped back once more, feeling the cool, hard surface of her refrigerator against her back.

Stiles was inches from her face, red with anger, a pulse visible in his forehead. Morinna never let anybody get this close to her – so close she could smell the sharp scent of his blood. She dug her nails into her hand.

 _They won't kill you. They don't know what you are yet. Collect yourself and get him away from you._

"Lydia," Stiles spat. "You did something to her. How do we stop it?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Morinna said defiantly, rising up to look him in the eyes. "Now get out."

She tried to sidestep and duck under his arm. Stiles grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her roughly back against the fridge, her head snapping back against it painfully. Morinna blinked back tears.

"I'm not buying your innocent act, Morinna," he hissed, almost nose to nose with her. "Scott might see the best in everyone, but I know when people are hiding things. I know there's something off about you. Lydia knew it too. And now she's in a hospital bed."

Morinna took a shaky breath. She could almost taste his blood, separated from her by only the thin skin of his neck. She could smell her own blood, seeping out of her palm where her nails were dug in further than they had ever been before. "I'm sorry about Lydia, but it wasn't me. Now let me go."

"No," he said, voice low and menacing.

"Then I'm sorry."

His eyes widened a millisecond before she knocked him to the side, his body crumpling at the force. Stiles landed ten feet away, inches from her sideboard, rolling over as he hit the floor. It took him only a few seconds before he began to scramble to his feet.

"Leave, Stiles," Morinna said simply, trying to sound reasonable and calm and not terrified. "Send your alpha if you must discuss things. I won't have this violence."

He scowled at her, eyes darting around the room calculatingly. Morinna tensed, wondering what his plan was.

Stiles seized a magazine from her coffee table, rolling it up into a tube.

"Really?" Morinna scoffed, picking a piece of china out of the bottom of her foot.

And then he pulled a lighter from his pocket and set it aflame.

Morinna shrank back, horrified, and pulled a knife from the block on the counter. She held it out in front of her, cringing at how obviously her hand was shaking.

"How did you know?" she choked, watching him advance. "Stay away from me. Stay _away,_ Stiles."

"Electric tealights," he said quietly, holding the flaming magazine out in front of him. "If you liked candles enough to want that many, you'd have at least one real one. Figured you couldn't do fire."

A few tears escaped. Morinna remembered London, remembered the pain of claws burying themselves just above her hip.

"I can't help you, Stiles," she whispered pleadingly. "I haven't done anything to Lydia. I don't know what's wrong with her."

He stepped forward again. He was five feet from her at most. Morinna couldn't keep her eyes off the curling flames. She knew that she would go up like kindling if he got too close.

"Her heart. She said it was going to slow down and stop beating. Like yours."

He sounded sad, like he was acting out of necessity. In a way, he probably was.

"She's wrong. She can't be turning into what I am. There's no way."

"You're lying," Stiles said.

Another step closer. Morinna could feel the heat, feel the phantom of the pain she would be in if he came even a pace closer.

"Please, don't," she begged, fumbling and dropping the knife. Submission. Maybe that would save her. "Please."

"Stiles, stop!" cried out an unfamiliar voice.

Morinna looked up to see a lanky man in the doorway of her apartment, rage apparent on his face.

/Fog by Kids and Chemicals

She wasn't what he had been expecting.

Scott hadn't really given him much of a physical description when he had been inducted into the latest mystery of the Beacon Hills pack – the name Morinna, what she could do and how Lydia had reacted. On the phone he had just been told to stop Stiles from making a mistake.

Isaac was pretty sure that trying to kill a teenage girl was a mistake.

"I don't normally cry," Morinna said weakly, arms wrapped around herself. She was sat on the very edge of her little blue couch, still shaking. Adrenaline or fear, he wasn't sure.

Isaac shrugged. "Somebody did just try to kill you," he pointed out. It seemed like a sensible thing to say. He wasn't particularly used to this emotional stuff.

"Thanks for stopping him," she said, avoiding eye contact.

"Can I ask," Isaac said, trying to get a better look at her face. "Scott said you could, like, mind control people…"

"Why didn't I?" she guessed, finally looking up and tossing her hair out of her face.

She was very pretty, Isaac noted. The sort of girl he would have definitely flirted with in high school. Big grey eyes and soft-looking lips, caramel coloured hair. She was wearing a short denim skirt with pale embroidery on it and a heather grey cardigan.

Morinna considered his question, and then said abruptly, "do you drink coffee?"

Isaac blinked. "Yeah, I guess."

She looked at him strangely, but walked over to the kitchenette, kicking broken china away, pulled another mug out of the cupboard and began to pour from the coffee machine.

"It's kind of hard to explain," she said, pushing a china cat towards him. "That's sugar."

"I have time," Isaac replied, sitting on one of the bar stools.

Morinna pulled a carton of milk out of the refrigerator and pushed it towards him. She watched him fix his drink and then nodded over to the couch. "Let's sit somewhere I didn't almost die," she said nonchalantly.

Isaac followed her over and sat down with his drink. He felt out of place in her apartment. He was still getting used to being back in Beacon Hills, away from the basements and hovels he had spent two years moving between. He had spent one month sleeping in the back room of a club. Even her simple place seemed like luxury.

"It's not easy, you know?" Morinna said, taking a sip of her coffee. "Compulsion. That's what it's called, not mind control. I don't really control people's minds, I just… make them want to do things."

"What's the difference?"

"I _said_ it was hard to explain. Your mind controls your body, does it not? If I could control minds, I could control bodies – move somebody's legs, make them physically turn around and leave. I cannot. I can instead make the idea of leaving seem very attractive to them. It doesn't always work. If there's a good reason for them not to do something, then it can interfere."

"You've lost me."

"Have you ever desired something that you cannot have?"

A brief image of Allison popped into his mind. Right at the beginning, in a storage cupboard, when he felt himself falling and knew that he couldn't do it. Not to Scott.

"Yes," he admitted, his mouth curving downwards slightly.

"And you didn't pursue it, did you? Even though you wanted it. Because things are never that simple."

"Actually, I did."

Morinna rolled her eyes. "You're a terrible example. My point is, you can want something and not act on it. Most of the time there's no reason strong enough to stop someone from doing what they truly want, but it's possible."

"And is that what happened with Stiles?"

"I didn't try it with Stiles," Morinna admitted. "Compulsion is… seduction."

"Seduction?"

"Yes, in a broad sense. It uses desire and lust, so it only works under the right conditions. My target needs to be receptive – listening to me, ideally making eye contact, physically touching me can help. He was too angry. And I – I need to be calm. It wouldn't have worked."

"I see," Isaac said, staring into his coffee cup. He looked up at her, suddenly. "Would it work on me now?"

Morinna held his gaze for a few moments. "Yes," she said quietly.

Isaac turned pink. "Scott told me that Lydia's in the hospital. She thinks her heart is going to stop beating like yours," he said, expertly changing the subject.

"I can't see why it would. I haven't done anything," she said decisively.

"Well, how did it happen to you?"

"It's like I told your friends. I was bitten, like you."

"Human teeth aren't sharp enough to bite through skin," Isaac pointed out. "Not in the way wolves can. They can't cause any real damage."

"I'm not human," Morinna said bluntly. "Will you visit again?"

"What?"

"Will you visit me again? I just moved here. I don't see people very often. If Scott wants to keep an eye on me, I'd prefer him to send you."


	7. Chapter 7

/Team by Lorde

"Find anything?" he asked as soon as Stiles walked in.

Scott was sitting in the chair by Lydia's bed, gently clasping her hand. She looked much the same; skin pale enough to look paper thin, face smoothed out like porcelain by sleep, though someone had put her under a thin sheet now. Probably to hide the blood.

Stiles shook his head, looking frustrated. Scott stood up, careful not to jostle Lydia, and gave him the seat. Stiles looked guilty as he laced his fingers through Lydia's.

"Thanks for looking after her," he sighed. "What did your mom give her?"

"Benzos," Scott said. "But they've worn off by now. She's just sleeping."

"And her heart?"

"It's been fine. Definitely not slowing down," Scott reassured him. "We don't know what that was earlier, but it's looking okay. I was thinking maybe she was feeling how Morinna felt? Slow heart and all?"

Stiles looked extremely remorseful. "Yeah, Morinna seemed pretty certain that she hadn't done anything."

"You flipped out, didn't you?" Scott said candidly, crossing his arms.

Stiles winced. "I could have been calmer…" he admitted judiciously.

"Is that what happened to your shoulder? She kicked your ass?" Scott asked, clearly amused.

Stiles glared at him. "You noticed the shoulder, then."

Scott shrugged. "You're sitting weirdly. One shoulder is higher than the other. And your chemo-signals are pain and embarrassment."

"It's just a bruise," Stiles muttered begrudgingly.

Scott walked back over to rest a hand on him, pulling the pain from his body.

"Have you damaged relations irreparably?" he joked, jaw twitching minutely as he absorbed the pain.

"She said you could still talk to her before I…" Stiles seemed to rethink mid-sentence. "Uh, yeah, possibly…"

" _Really_ Stiles? What did you do?"

"Please remember that I thought she was slowly killing the love of my life," Stiles appealed, looking at Lydia. "I may have… threatened her, slightly."

"Threatened her? That's not like you," Scott said, frowning at his friend.

"Like, I said, I thought Lydia was dying. I'm not proud of it."

"Well, was it worth it?" Scott asked, looking unimpressed. "Did you find anything? Anything at all?"

"I found out she's afraid of fire. Deathly afraid," Stiles said, looking sheepish. "That could be a clue. She's definitely not a hellhound."

"Afraid of _fire_?" Scott echoed, dumbfounded. "Tell me you didn't, Stiles."

"Look, Scott, for all I knew she was a monster. We still don't know if she's safe to be around! She might well be the next kanima. What was I supposed to do? Playing nice wasn't working."

"I'm glad she kicked your ass. It sounds like you deserved it," Scott said, deadpan. "So… we know she can control minds, doesn't have much of a heartbeat, is slightly stronger than normal people – "

"Slightly?" Stiles snorted. "She launched me across the room."

Scott suppressed a laugh. "… She is _very_ strong. Afraid of fire, too. That could just be a rational fear, right? I'm not a huge fan of the prospect of burning to death, either. Really, Stiles, she just sounds like a human to me. An enhanced human. Kind of like me when I'm not full wolf, you know?"

"You're right. I don't think we've seen her real form. I never asked – what's up with all the blood? What was Lydia doing when you found her?"

"She was in the blood bank. She dropped a bag, which is why she's covered in it."

"Okay, and what was she doing before that?" Stiles asked, suddenly standing up and going to the paper towel dispenser.

"What are _you_ doing?" Scott asked incredulously, watching as Stiles pulled a stream of white paper out of the dispenser.

"I don't have my murder board," he said simply, laying paper out on the floor. "What was Lydia doing while she was in her fugue?"

"I don't know," Scott said. "I didn't get there until after she fainted. Do you have a theory or something?"

"Not yet… find me a pen?"

Scott began to rummage through the draws, chucking out biros as he found them. Stiles seized up a green one triumphantly and began to scrawl.

"We're missing something obvious," he said determinedly.

"I agree," Melissa said, appearing in the doorway. "And I think I know what it is."

/Street Clothes by Marz Ferrer and Voli

She had run out of blood.

Morinna cursed her poor planning. She had taken too much blood from the bank already this month, unprepared for the lack of sources in Beacon Hills. When she first left England she had stopped over in Chicago for a couple of months, where there was a donation bank every twenty blocks. Beacon Hills only had two – a donation centre and the central storage at the hospital.

Maybe moving here had been a bad idea. She had wanted the heat and small-town comfort she found here but she was still getting used to thinking about such vampiric trivialities as blood banks. All of the disruption lately – all the werewolves in her apartment – really proved her point.

But she had paid for a year of rent upfront and wasn't prepared to lose that much money. She couldn't move now. Which meant that, for the foreseeable future, she was going to have to start travelling further to steal blood.

That didn't solve her problem tonight.

Begrudgingly, Morinna opened her wardrobe and carefully selected an outfit. She didn't often go to clubs. She picked out a black crop top with an almost cage-like construction that fastened in a bow around her neck, layering it with a dark faux-military jacket, and softening the look with a duck-egg blue tulle skirt and some embroidered ankle boots. She fluffed up her hair and painted her lips a dark, velvety red, finishing with some studded leather jewellery, and carefully locked up her apartment.

She had seen the club before; walked past it on her way back from a blood run. It was around the corner from the donation centre, in a huge industrial building, the only clue as to what was inside being the rumbling noise of the bass audible from the street around it. A few men stood in the street outside, smoking pot.

Morinna strode up to the bouncer, ready to compel him to let her inside without carding, but he opened the door without looking at her for long. From the look of the shot girls standing just inside the door, she supposed that the proprietors were not all that interested in underage drinking laws.

 _The Jungle_ ¸ said a neon sign above the bar. Morinna was happy to see that the clientele were mostly gay men; the evening would be so much more enjoyable without dozens of greedy hands pawing at her skin. She shuddered at the ghost of a memory.

Morinna welcomed the sweaty abyss of the crowd, allowing herself to be pulled right into the middle of it. She could feel the music thumping through the floor, vibrating her very bones. She began to dance, one with the sea of writhing bodies, time seeming to lose meaning. Her hands swirled through the air, twisting, her head swinging, hips turning. Then she began to feed.

It was euphoric. She felt like she was floating, like her brain had been cut free from her body. Opening her eyes for a moment, all she could see were blurred lights and the muted colours of skin around her. Her heart stuttered, beating the way it rarely did, keeping time to the music. Desire rolled through her torso in waves, dizzying, almost hurting in her chest and deep in her stomach. The men around her began to slow, lethargic, movements less sure.

Hands snaked around her from behind, trailing over her hip and across her ribs. Two palms resting against her cleavage and lower stomach, pulling her flush against a body. Morinna, heart beating in her ears, was barely aware. She had forgotten the potency of this, how easy it was to lose control. She continued to twist and bend, feeling muscles against her back, warm skin, lips on her throat.

On her throat.

This snapped her out of her revelry. She put a hand over the one on her chest, still giddy. He took this for encouragement, sliding slowly down to cup her breast. Morinna gasped softly, trying to pick her own feelings from the lust she had taken from the men around her. There was a dull ache in the back of her head, the come-down from the drug. The hand on her stomach slid lower.

Morinna dropped her head back against his shoulder, looking up through long lashes, expecting to see someone familiar. The face grinning down at her was not him.

She pulled away, turning to look at him in shock. The music seemed to be ever louder, her heart slowing to its usual apathetic rhythm. He stepped forward, catching her waist with one of his big hands. He was blonde, with a strong jaw, heavy brows and a cocky smile.

Suddenly feeling very, very cold, Morinna lifted her leg up and kicked him. Hard.

He shot back into the crowd, knocking a few people over. Ten or twenty people looked in her direction in shock.

Morinna stared for a moment, suddenly aware of tears on her cheeks. A guy about her age, tanned with dark hair and kind eyes, approached her slowly. He said something to her, but she couldn't hear over the music.

She had blown her cover.

Morinna turned and ran out of the building, brushing past the perturbed bouncer. She stopped by her car, leaning on it, breathing deeply, feeling dizzy and nauseous. A voice called to her from across the parking lot. He had followed her outside – the boy with the kind eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked, jogging over. He was wearing a purple striped form-fitting t-shirt and pale jeans. He seemed harmless enough, but Morinna wasn't sure.

"Don't touch me," she said in a voice that she hoped was assertive and threatening but almost certainly came out as terrified.

The boy put his hands up in the air, eyes wide. "No touching, got it. I just, uh – that guy back there? The one you pushed over? Was he touching you? Because I know the bouncer –"

"It's fine. I overreacted," Morinna said stiffly, fumbling through her bag for car keys.

"Are you sure? It's no trouble. I'd hate for you to have to leave because of him –"

"Thanks, but I'm not interested," Morinna snapped, pulling the keys out of her bag.

"No, no," the boy said, frowning. "I'm not hitting on you. Look – I'm Danny. I'm gay. Not interested in you. Now, please don't leave just because of one asshole."

She froze, conflicted. Her brain told her to run; to get in her car, to never come to Jungle again. Her heart told her _you're lonely. Make a friend, make one uncomplicated friend._

"Why do you care?" she whispered, crossing her arms.

Danny looked a little embarrassed. "I got groped too, my first time here," he admitted. "And I almost didn't come back, all because of one guy. But without this place I wouldn't have learnt a lot of things about myself – plus, the DJ is a genius. Consider this paying it forward."

Morinna stared at him for a long few moments, and then she snapped the clasp of her clutch shut.

"Morinna," she said curtly, offering him her hand.


	8. Chapter 8

/The Sea is a Good Place to Think About the Future by Los Campesinos

"What about now?"

"I'm _still_ not dying, Stiles," Lydia said exasperatedly, turning her head up from the pillow to glare at him. She was lying face down on the hospital bed while a young medical technician pulled thorns and gravel from her feet. "Did you call my mom?"

"Oh, crap, no," he said, pulling his phone out. "What's the time difference in Milan? I'll call he-"

"Don't!" Lydia squeaked, eyes wide. "Don't worry her. No point, not while she's on vacation."

Stiles frowned at her. "She'll find out when it comes up on your insurance statement."

Lydia sighed. "Leave it, Stiles."

He held his hands up in surrender and shut his mouth pointedly. Every few seconds came a quiet clinking noise as another thorn was dropped into the metal surgical bowl. Lydia hissed as the technician dug his sharp tweezers into her foot, and Stiles absently reached across to hold her hands.

"Walked through a rose garden, huh, Lyds?"

Lydia propped herself up on her elbows and craned her neck over her shoulder to try and see into the bowl.

"I might actually have walked through a rose bush or too," she mused. "My mom just planted a bunch on the side of our driveway. Hey, at least I didn't drive here."

Stiles couldn't bring himself to laugh.

"Dr Rushbrook thinks you can probably leave after we clean your feet up," the technician piped up. "He just needs to sign your paperwork."

Lydia smiled, resting her head back on the pillow. "I can't wait to put real clothes on."

" _I_ can't wait to get back to my murder board," Stiles said, earning himself a strange look from the assistant.

"Disinfecting, now, Lydia," the technician warned her, soaking a cotton pad with something strong smelling and yellow.

Lydia screwed up her face and squeezed Stiles' hand, hard. She breathed deeply as her feet were cleaned and bandaged up, yelping when the gauze was pulled tight. As soon as the technician left the room she was all business.

"Did anyone talk to Morinna?" she asked urgently.

Stiles had been expecting the question. The benzos had made her woozy and confused, but mercifully had stopped the nightmares that she had been having for months, so Lydia had been catching up on sleep for almost twenty-four hours. This was her first opportunity to address the issue at hand.

"Yeah. I went and… spoke to her, but she didn't know anything."

Lydia noticed how he stiffened and hesitated mid-sentence and narrowed her eyes at him. "But she's okay?"

"Why wouldn't she be okay?" Stiles asked, voice slightly higher than usual.

"I think that's what it is, Stiles," Lydia said as if it were obvious. "Morinna's in danger. Of dying, that is. That's why I can hear it."

"Hear what?"

"A heart beating. A heart beat slowing down."

/Still by Daughter

Scott came to pick them up from the hospital.

Stiles, still refusing to leave Lydia's side, had called him and asked him to stop by her house and pick up some shoes. Scott was running late because he hadn't been able to find anything with less than a four-inch heel. It turned out that all of Lydia's sneakers were hidden away in the corner of her walk-in closet rather than on display like her heels and ankle-boots.

They hadn't had the foresight to pick up clothing, though, which meant that Lydia was now sitting in the backseat of the jeep in a hospital gown obscured by Stiles' big green hoodie, her heavily bandaged feet wedged into some bright pink tennis shoes.

"Not my best look," she commented ruefully, looking down at her bare legs.

"Still beautiful to me," Stiles murmured, reaching back from the drivers' seat to pat her clumsily on the knee.

Scott wrinkled his nose comically. "Do you need to sleep, Lydia? Because I can go see Morinna without you."

"As if. I feel like running a marathon right now," she said, suddenly looking down at the blood spotted bandages on her feet. "Maybe swimming instead. I just need half an hour to shower and fix my face and then we're all ready to go. I don't think she's going to die within the next hour."

"Stiles is going to have to stay behind," Scott said in an amused voice.

Lydia narrowed her eyes.

"What did I miss?"

"Nothing," Stiles said at the same time as Scott said "A lot."

Lydia looked between them and then zeroed in on Scott. "Spill it, wolf boy," she said, sounding vaguely threatening.

Stiles sighed from the front seat.

"Stiles lost his cool trying to get information out of Morinna," Scott explained. "He threatened her."

"Stiles!" Lydia cried out, shooting a death glare at the back of her boyfriend's head. He was suddenly very focused on the road but she could see his ears turning pink. "Is she okay?"

"More than. She kicked his ass," Scott said, finally giving in to the laughter that was trying to burst out of him.

"Maybe you should buy her an apology muffin basket, Stiles," Lydia suggested. "Or fill in the paperwork for a restraining order so she doesn't have to."

"Not fair!" Stiles moaned. "I was trying to save your life."

"If you say so," Lydia said. Scott could see the dimple in her cheek becoming more defined, as her jaw tensed in an effort to stop herself from snorting.

When she got home she had a difficult shower, sat on the floor of her bath tub with her feet hanging over the edge to prevent her bandages from getting wet. She had then needed to call Stiles in to help her get up and he had decided to carry her bridal-style back to her bedroom, knocking her head on the doorframe. Lydia at least felt a lot more like herself as she braided her hair above her forehead and painted her lips a hot pink colour. She almost didn't need to put concealer on – her drug-induced sleep had done wonders for her dark circles. Pulling on a black summer dress with hundreds of applique flowers around the skirt and a red cotton cardigan, Lydia winced as she stuffed her painful feet into some black espadrilles and went downstairs.

Scott and Stiles were sat at her breakfast bar, eating muffins.

"Coffee?" she asked brightly, and Scott nodded at the pot. "Amazing."

Lydia poured the hot liquid into her travel mug and picked up a blueberry muffin from the box on the counter.

"Ready to go? Stiles staying in the car, of course."

She slid the keys to the jeep across the counter towards him and walked back through to the foyer.

"This is the most energy I have ever seen another human have," Scott commented, following her out.

"Love me some benzos," Lydia murmured. "Best sleep since that time I died for a little while! Let's go save lives and fight crime and stuff."

It took them only six minutes to arrive at Morinna's apartment; she lived on the same side of town to Lydia. After some mild arguing, Lydia kissed Stiles on the lips and then shut him in the jeep, much to his chagrin.

Morinna's door was not ajar as it usually was, though she opened it as soon as they knocked. She looked left and right down the hall before she let them in.

"You left your _friend_ outside, I gather?" she asked, sounding wholly unimpressed.

Lydia pursed her lips. "If you want to go down and talk to him then I'm sure he has an apology for you."

"If I'm going to be threatened with fire then I'll keep it to the safety of my own home, thanks," she said bitingly, and Lydia flinched, clearly realising the extent of her boyfriend's actions. "Coffee is in the pot, though I see you brought your own."

Lydia raised her cup in acknowledgement and went to sit on one of the bar stools.

"I'm so sorry about Stiles," Scott said, looking genuinely guilty. "I didn't tell him to do that, I promise –"

"Whatever," Morinna cut him off, going to retrieve her own mug. "Did you want something?"

Scott saw that she was dressed down again today, in plain black leggings and a sports bra, a purple hoodie and grey socks with little dinosaurs on. Her hair was in a messy high ponytail, and there was glitter on her cheeks like she hadn't taken her makeup off properly after a festival.

He cringed. "We have to talk to you about something. It's not… well, it's not _great_ news."

Morinna sighed, putting her drink down and flopping down dramatically onto the couch.

"Is someone bleeding?" she suddenly asked, sitting back up and looking around.

"Me," Lydia said. "You can smell that?"

Morinna shrugged, lying back down. "I'm sure Scott can too, if he thinks about it. What's the bad news, then? Am I dying, doctor?"

"Well…"

"Actually, yes," Lydia said bluntly. "Stiles told you about my… _episode_ , I assume?"

"I mean, not in great detail. It's not going to be painful, right? I hope I just slip away in my sleep."

"How morbid," Lydia grimaced. "I walked from my house to the hospital and picked a load of blood bags up from the central blood storage. Then I freaked out because I thought my heart was slowing down."

Morinna stared at her for a few moments, face carefully emotionless, and then looked away.

"Any idea what that could mean?" Scott asked.

"Shouldn't we be asking the banshee?" Morinna countered, a slight edge to her voice.

"I think it's a warning of some sort. I think you're dying," Lydia said primly.

"Any particular reason, or are you just always this optimistic?"

Lydia gave her a wilting look. "Because, _Morinna,_ I am an omen of death and so I doubt that this is a portent of you having an average week."

Morinna rolled her eyes. "Do you want my clothes when I die? We're about the same size. I have a lot of vintage."

Scott looked at her in disbelief. "Why aren't you taking this seriously? Lydia just told you that you were going to die."

Morinna shrugged. "I could have told you that. This hangover is killer. Look, if it's my time then it's my time. ' _The meaning of life is that it stops_ ,' and all that. That's Kafka, by the way. Anyway, I'm assuming you have some kind of plan – why else would you be here? Only a sadist would come and tell a girl she was going to die without some kind of solution."

Lydia and Scott looked at each other, taken aback by her nihilism.

"We have a plan," Scott said without any particular certainty. "We're gonna keep watch on you. In shifts."

Morinna's face immediately lost its coy smile. "You're kidding," she said, deadpan. "Can we reschedule? I have a friend over tonight."

"I'm first shift," Scott said sheepishly.


	9. Chapter 9

/Line of Fire by The Veronicas

Morinna looked flustered when she opened the door.

She gave Danny a grim smile and ushered him in. The first person he saw was Scott sprawled on the couch.

"Scott?" he said, confused.

"Danny?" piped up a voice from the kitchenette, where he was surprised to find Malia perched on the counter eating Doritos.

"Morinna?" Morinna chimed in mockingly. "I see you've met my babysitters."

"You know Morinna?" Scott asked, getting up to hug Danny.

Danny looked over at Morinna, almost laughing. " _You_ know Scott?"

"Yes, yes, we all know each other, we've established this," she said exasperatedly, running her fingers through her hair.

"So you're like, what? A werewolf? Banshee?" Danny asked earnestly.

"Him too? _Really_?" Morinna exclaimed, looking extremely annoyed, directing an accusing look at Scott.

"Dated a werewolf last year," Danny said bashfully. "It's Beacon Hills, dude. If it helps, I was human last time I checked."

Morinna threw her arms up in defeat, walking towards her bedroom. "Werewolves! Fucking werewolves, wherever I go! Of course!" she shouted, almost hysterically laughing, slamming the door.

"She's not taking this very well," Malia observed, staring at the polished white wood of the closed door.

Danny sat down next to Scott. "Why are you babysitting her? First full moon?"

"Nah, not a wolf. Something else. Lydia thinks she's dying. How do you know her?"

"Met her in Jungle last night. My supernatural friends are outnumbering my human ones now."

"Jungle, interesting," Scott mused. "Morinna doesn't seem like the type. She strikes me as a loner."

The bedroom door opened and Morinna's grey eyes peered through the gap, glaring at Scott. "I just moved here. I'm not a loser," she said, sounding annoyed. "Can someone zip me up?"

Malia hopped off the counter and disappeared behind the door.

"Are we going somewhere?" Danny called over, hands resting behind his head.

"Anywhere but here!" Morinna called back dramatically. She emerged a moment later, fully transformed – wearing a black tulle dress with a carefully constructed lace bodice top, as closely fitted as lingerie, and a leather jacket, balancing on extremely high heels tied with a ribbon.

"Whoa, we didn't agree on going out," Scott said worriedly, standing up.

"And I didn't agree to house arrest," Morinna smiled, voice silken and saccharine sweet. "Danny, if you were going to murder me, where is the first place you'd look?"

Danny shrugged. "Here, I guess. I don't really know where else you'd be."

"Exactly," said Morinna. "We're going out for my own protection."

"I think I'm underdressed," pondered Danny, fingering the edge on his blue v-neck sweater. "Where are we going?"

"I don't know. I don't know the area," said Morinna. "Let's go get dinner! My treat."

"Beacon Hills doesn't really have any fancy restaurants," Scott warned her, looking at her extremely tall shoes.

She shrugged. "It doesn't have to be fancy. This is my last week on earth, Scott, let me wear my favourite dress to dinner. What is it everyone eats over here? Is it tack-ohs or tock-ohs?"

They finally settled on a family Mexican place, Morinna flirting ostentatiously with the waiter who was very obliging in flirting back. When she convinced him to bring them over a tray laden with drinks, including tequila shots, without carding them, Scott had to wonder if she had been using compulsion. Would he put rules into place, he wondered, if she eventually joined the pack? The ethics of compelling people were a whole day's worth of philosophical thinking. He didn't suppose he would ever have to make the decision, but Liam had hated them all in the beginning too. Scott hoped this was just a difficult transitory period.

"So, Morinna, what are you? Scott never told me," Danny asked as soon as there was a silence.

"I'm a Virgo," she said, deadpan. "We're very sceptical. Don't believe in any of that supernatural stuff."

Danny got the hint that she didn't want to talk about it and changed the subject. "So, you live alone, then? Do your parents live nearby?"

She shook her head.

"You left them in England?"

"You could say that. They died," she said, her composed half-smile not faltering. "All that supernatural stuff I don't believe in."

Malia snorted. "Been there," she muttered, knocking back some of her drink. Scott took her hand across the table and she looked at it as if it baffled her, before squeezing it gratefully. Morinna gave her a rare look of camaraderie.

Danny looked uncomfortable. "Sorry to hear that," he said carefully.

Morinna shrugged, picking up her own glass. "' _The greatest loss is what dies inside while still alive,'"_ she said solemnly, taking a sip.

"Kafka again?" Scott guessed.

"Tupac," Morinna said, holding back a smile. "It's a pretty quote. The point is that they were happy while they lived. An unhappy life is a greater tragedy than a happy death."

"Are your dinners always so depressing?" asked Malia, prompting Morinna to grin wickedly and pick up a shot glass.

Scott knocked back tequila like everybody else at the table, but something Morinna had said was bothering him. He kept thinking about her words, about how dying was meaningless without living, and about how she had shrugged when told she could die very soon. He couldn't help but draw a comparison, as she cracked callous jokes and made reckless decisions, between her and Isaac. There was something behind the tight smile and too-wide eyes – something broken.

/Redose by The Prototypes

They ended up in Jungle again, Danny pulling them past the short queue outside and high-fiving the bouncer as they walked in. He and Morinna snaked through the crowd towards the bar holding hands, not even looking back at them.

Scott, stone cold sober, was feeling very much the inconvenienced adult by this journey. He didn't want to keep Morinna shut up in her apartment, and he didn't want to tell her what she could and couldn't do. He also didn't want her to die, and his own experience in the clubs of Beacon Hills didn't reassure him at all. He distinctly remembered Allison's mom trying to kill him with wolfsbane in a side room, and the Oni manifesting at the UV party and marking both Ethan and Lydia. There were hundreds of people packed into the club, all brushing up against each other. She could be stabbed, she could be bitten, she could be… pricked with a poisoned stick, Orphan-style. So many possibilities for death.

Reaching the bar, Malia at his side, Scott grabbed Morinna by the arm. "Stay close to me, okay?" he shouted over the music, eyes wide, imploring her to agree.

She rolled her eyes. "Sure thing, dad," she yelled back, pulling crumpled dollar bills out of her clutch bag to pay for drinks. "Shots?"

Scott sighed and lined up at the bar with her, all four of them enduring three more tequila shots. Malia cheered as she downed the last one.

"You know it takes a lot to get drunk, right?" Scott pointed out, raising an eyebrow at her.

"It's not impossible though!" she said, grinning.

Hearing this, Morinna cackled with glee. "More shots, please, garçon!"

Scott put his head in his hands as Danny lifted her up by her waist, spinning her around. "I'm good," he said as another drink was pushed towards him.

After a few more shots, Morinna and Danny grabbed Scott and Malia and pulled them into the centre of the dancefloor, already rowdy. Morinna put her arms around Scott's neck, dancing, trying to entice him into letting loose. He carefully disentangled her.

"Maybe you should calm down," he suggested, pushing her hair out of her face.

She pouted. "You're no fun," she complained. "Dance with your girlfriend, idiot! Danny, dance with me!"

Danny immediately grabbed her by the waist, grinding on her in a way that would have been inappropriate had they not both been howling with laughter. Scott had to snigger at them, grabbing Malia and spinning her under his arm. She stopped abruptly and kissed him, hard, pausing to look him firmly in the eyes.

"Can you just ask me out already?" she cried. "I just want to make out with you all the time. This is ridiculous. You have a mouth, Scott, use it!"

He looked stunned. "Okay," he managed to say, cut off by another kiss.

Morinna and Danny cheered, jumping around as if the beat of the music was a vague guideline that they had no interest in following.

They were there for at least an hour before things suddenly shifted. Even Scott had been feeling the buzz of the evening, of the hundreds of excited people around him in a sort of Bacchic ecstasy. And then things seemed to mute suddenly, like the volume had been turned down a notch or two, not just the music but the voices. Scott became very aware of his own heartbeat, his arms feeling heavier, his legs feeling like they were wading through water as he tried to step to the sounds. Malia was looking around herself with a bemused expression like she felt it too, and everyone nearby was moving lazily as if they were tired.

Morinna was leaning against Danny, who had his chin resting on her shoulder and his arms around her waist. They were swaying slowly. Morinna's grey eyes were rolled nearly completely back into her head.

It took Scott a moment to put it together, his thoughts moving through his head as if suspended in treacle. There was something wrong with Morinna – could this be what Lydia predicted? He wasn't sure what was happening, but it seemed to be affecting her worst. Something airborne, maybe, and concentrated around her?

"Morinna!" he shouted, shaking her.

She blinked for a moment, eyes focusing, and stood up suddenly. Everything came back in a moment, as if the bubble around them shielding them from the noise of the club had slowly melted.

"Oh god," she said, looking suddenly horrified. "Oh god, oh god, oh god!"

"Come on," Scott said, seizing her by the arm and pulling her towards the exit. He could hear her frantic murmuring continuing over the noise.

By the time they got outside, delicate streaks of mascara-tears were already staining her cheeks. As soon as they stopped walking she dropped to the floor, dejected.

"I fucked up," she wailed. "I thought I could control it. Oh god, they could have died!"

"Morinna!" Scott said loudly, dropping to his knees to be level with her and shaking her gently. "Are you hurt? Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, Scott," she snapped, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. More mascara smeared across her face.

"What was that?" he demanded. "Was that you?"

Malia and Danny suddenly burst out the door, spotting them immediately.

"That was weird!" Malia exclaimed, kneeling next to Morinna. "It was like something sucked all my emotions away for a few moments."

"You fucking caught me!" Morinna said bitterly, trying to stand up. "I accidentally _ate_ your feelings. I screwed up! I know!"

"You _what_?" Scott asked in disbelief.

Danny was staring at her wide-mouthed. "You _ate_ our emotions?" he repeated.

"It's a figure of speech, Danny," she spat. "I absorbed them. I didn't even need to feed, but I got carried away."

Scott sucked his lower lip, looking conflicted. "Well, at least we know what you are. A succubus."

Morinna snorted. "A fucking _succubus_? God, why not? My parents must be proud," she joked, but they could all see fresh tears sliding down her cheeks. "I need to go home. This is too much. It's been great, guys, don't let me ruin your night." She stood up, unsteady, and began to walk back across the carpark.

"Can we, like, _talk_ about this?" Scott called after her.

She laughed as she walked away.

"Let her go, man," Danny advised. "Never a dull night in Beacon Hills."

"We still need to watch her," Scott protested, beginning to follow.

"I got it," sighed Malia. "She doesn't dislike me yet."


	10. Chapter 10

/I Feel It All by Feist

Liam was strangely nervous as he approached the door to her apartment. He hadn't actually _met_ Morinna before, though he had seen her from her window. He probably shouldn't mention that.

Mason looked uncomfortable too, holding a stack of textbooks and sucking his lower lip. Liam knew that his friend wasn't exactly a social butterfly. He was thankful that Scott had sent them together; they balanced each other out. Fire and ice – anger and calm. Liam could always rely on Mason to tell him when to shut up, and Mason found it far easier to talk when they were together.

Morinna opened the door only a few seconds after, staring blankly at them. Her long hair was messy, tumbling roughly over her shoulders, and she had the remnants of heavy makeup staining her face – smoky smudges of mascara on her cheekbones, purple under her eyes. She was wearing a dark blue long sleeved top and some red plaid pyjama bottoms.

"Yes?" she said, staring at them expectantly, her eyes drifting up and down their bodies.

Liam could smell the salt of dried up tears and the smoke of the club Scott had mentioned.

"We're, uh, here to watch you," Mason said, swallowing.

"Scott sent us," added Liam.

She closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against the doorway and breathing deeply.

"There's more of you," she said eventually, lips pressed into a thin line. "More werewolves. Of course."

"I'm human," said Mason, giving her a weak smile.

"Right," said Morinna. "And you couldn't sit in your car outside like your alpha did all night?"

"We, uh, walked from my house."

Morinna grimaced and stepped back from the door. "You're lucky I don't have to sleep," she said coldly. "Or I'd have scalped you for showing up at 8:30am."

Liam and Mason laughed nervously and stepped tentatively into the apartment.

"We brought Monopoly," Mason offered, indicating to his backpack.

"This is surveillance, not camp," Morinna said shortly. "I'm going back to bed."

"I thought you didn't have to sleep?"

"Well, you don't technically have to shower but most people still choose to," she said sardonically, turning to walk back to her room.

"Hey, you're not going to escape out of the window, are you?" Liam called after her, following.

She whipped around, looking at him in disbelief. "I live on the _sixth floor_!"

"We don't know what you can do," pointed out Mason. "Maybe one of us should stay in the same room as you."

"I'm not fucking _Spiderman_. Let me take a nap, I've had a rough day."

"It's eight thirty in the morning!"

Morinna made an exasperated noise and shut the door in their faces. Liam and Mason looked at each other.

"I'll be able to hear if she tries to leave, I guess," Liam shrugged.

Another noise of annoyance emanated from behind the bedroom door. Resigned, Liam and Mason retreated to the couch to study – or in Liam's case, play Candy Crush with a history textbook open nearby.

After an hour Morinna emerged, not even looking at them. She padded over to the kitchen in white fluffy slippers and began making what looked like pancakes in a big glass bowl. Liam noticed that she had three plates ready on the counter.

"Do you want any help?" he called over.

She sniffed and shook her head. "Coffee?" she asked, voice quivering.

Both he and Mason nodded.

"You never told me your names," Morinna said emotionlessly, pouring from the pot into two blue mugs.

"Mason. And Liam."

Morinna nodded. "And I suppose you know mine."

"Morinna?"

"That's the one," she said, picking up the mugs and walking over to offer them.

"If it helps," Liam said, taking his drink from her. "We don't really want to be watching you either. I'm sure you're great, but we're basically babysitting right now."

She smiled bitterly, going to retrieve her own coffee. "It doesn't help. Why does every werewolf I've ever met think they're like, the supernatural police force?"

"We don't," Liam said, sounding hurt.

Morinna rolled her eyes, pouring some batter into a frying pan. "Sure you don't. Only your pack figured out I wasn't human and have barely left my side since. Fine, maybe something is trying to kill me, but that doesn't make it a werewolf problem. I left London because of wolves, you know, and now you're _here_ too. You involve yourselves in _everything_."

Liam shrugged. "We're trying to do the right thing, I guess."

"Right," she said. Suddenly, Morinna pointed her spatula at Mason. " _You_. I don't agree with you. Or that Stiles guy."

Mason looked taken aback. "I didn't say anything!"

"You didn't have to. You're here, in the apartment of some scary – what did Scott call me? A succubus? You're in a succubus' apartment, all because Scott told you to watch me. Don't give me that alpha bullshit. You had the option of a normal life and you didn't take it."

"Normal isn't necessarily better," Mason pointed out, coming to stand opposite her at the counter. "And anyway, my boyfriend is a chimera. And Stiles is dating a banshee. We don't really have a choice."

"That's still a choice," Morinna snapped, violently flipping the pancake over. Hot oil splattered out of the pan, sprinkling her wrist. She hissed, pouring her coffee over it. "Love turns people into fools. It's not worth it."

Liam jumped up from his seat as Mason rounded the corner and seized her by the wrist, dragging her to the sink and thrusting her forearm under the cold water tap.

"Hot coffee? On a burn? What were you thinking?"

"That liquid stops a fire," Morinna said, shaking off Liam's hand as he tried to touch her.

"I can stop it hurting," Liam said insistently, trying to put a hand on her shoulder.

"It barely hurts," Morinna muttered, pulling her arm out of the stream of water and returning to the pan. "We only have a problem if I literally catch on fire."

After a quick non-verbal exchange, Liam and Mason decided not to pursue it.

"Order's up," Morinna said unenthusiastically, flipping the pancake onto the waiting stack. "I have no maple syrup, so your options are sugar or caramel syrup meant for ice cream. Are you watching me all day, or has someone else got the afternoon shift?"

"Us until eight," Liam said, helping himself to the food. "Then Lydia is coming over, and Scott again."

Morinna sighed. "Well, I have to run errands, so I guess you're coming with me."

/Paper Mache Planes by Nova & the Experience

"Hey, Jackson," called Ethan from their bedroom.

Jackson walked out of the bathroom, a towel slung around his hips. "Mm?"

"Danny posted –"

"Danny," Jackson cut him off. "You're looking at Danny's Facebook again? Great. Thanks for calling me in to show me."

Ethan rolled his eyes, sitting up to pull Jackson down to sit next to him. "I'm not checking. It came up on my Newsfeed. You know, like Lydia comes up on yours? Because we're adults who remain friends with their exes?"

Jackson huffed. "Doesn't mean I show you."

"Can you just pay attention, please? For like, a second?"

"Fine." He tilted the screen up, scanning his eyes over the picture.

Danny was in a club, taking a selfie with a guy he hadn't seen before. He was wearing a purple shirt, one Jackson recognised – he had had it since junior year, though it was a lot tighter now. The guy was kissing he cheek, eyes closed, and Danny appeared to be laughing.

Jackson shrugged. "Good for him," he said getting up.

"In the background, Jackson," Ethan sighed, holding up the laptop.

Jackson dropped down, squinting at the screen. "Is that..?"

"Morinna," Ethan said grimly.

Over Danny's shoulder was Morinna, pale caramel hair catching the light. She was looking over her shoulder, as if someone had just called her name.

"What's she doing in Beacon Hills?" Jackson murmured, dropping to look closer at the screen.

"I guess it's still a beacon."

"Should we warn Scott?"

Ethan shook his head. "He'll stop us. You know how she is… convincingly human."

"Until it matters," Jackson said.

"Until it matters," Ethan agreed. "Call Beaumont. We know what we have to do."

/Control by Somo

Stiles liked watching Lydia.

He had a little mental catalogue of her expressions. Eyes narrowing slightly, a small quirk at the right corner of her mouth – she had read something that interested her. Eyes widening, lips pressed together – she had read something relevant to the case. Eyes narrowed, chewing the bottom lip – she was confused.

He loved her in this light; the glare from the window behind her turning her hair the colour of fire and softening her silhouette. Her green eyes were intent – slightly narrowed, the corner of her mouth turned up – staring back at him through the glass of his investigation board.

"See something you like?" she asked, looking amused. She shut the book in her lap.

Stiles looked bashful, eyes flickering back to the wool in his hand. "My girlfriend who I love."

"Smooth," Lydia laughed. "How's the investigation going?"

"Not awful," Stiles mused. "I can't figure out where the missing blood fits in to this."

"How she's going to die?" Lydia suggested. "Maybe she'll bleed out."

Stiles considered this. "You don't normally predict _how_ they die," he said. "Maybe it's something else. Did you find anything on succubus?"

"Lots," said Lydia. "If only any of it made sense."

"You don't understand it?"

"I don't understand _her_ ," Lydia said, standing up and walking to stand on the same side of the board as Stiles. She ducked under his arm, resting her head against his chest to look over his work.

In the centre of all of it was the name _Morinna_ , with the word _succubus_ bracketed underneath it.

"Do you have a pencil?"

Stiles handed her a white wax pencil from the pot, watching as she drew a line from the word succubus, splitting it off into several branches and then picking up the green and red colours. _Feeds on emotion_ , she wrote, underlining it in green. Then she wrote _part faerie_.

"See, succubus are faerie creatures," Lydia said. "Like me, I suppose, but closer to the folklore version. The book Deaton gave me describes them as having birdlike heartbeats – which she doesn't have." She drew a cross underneath, scribbling _barely beating heart_.

"Okay," Stiles said, reading her words. "But could she not be a… diluted version? Like, nobody can tell you're not human aside from your powers."

"Perhaps," Lydia conceded. "Which brings me to my next point."

She wrote _Born_ , followed by _Bitten_ in red.

"I see. She said it wasn't by a wolf," Stiles pointed out. "Maybe she was bitten by something else, and it triggered her powers. Like you."

"That's what I thought," said Lydia. "Except all of the accounts say that succubus are born from a union between an incubus and succubus. So both her parents had to be supernatural, which she didn't imply. They also say that she'd start showing powers at a young age, like – accidentally draining people. Yet she seemed pretty determined that this had all been very recent."

"A half breed?" Stiles suggested, tilting his head at the board.

"Maybe," replied Lydia. "Whatever it is, it doesn't fit."


	11. Chapter 11

/I Had Me a Girl by The Civil Wars

It was refreshing to shop with someone else. Mason was pushing the shopping cart and Liam was doing all the heavy lifting, leaving Morinna to drift around the aisles with her shopping list. She was buying triple her normal amount of shopping, anticipating her _guests_ would be sticking around for at least the rest of the week. She wasn't altogether unhappy about that, either – she had missed cooking for people, and not found an excuse to eat much more than soup since she had been on her own. Now she had a great excuse to make lasagne tonight.

She also let Liam fill up the cart with crisps – _chips_ , as she needed to start calling them – and other snack foods. Morinna didn't really need to snack, but she supposed it was an important part of being a good hostess.

Morinna didn't even dislike spending time with Liam and Mason, who had spent the past half an hour chattering about pranks they had played at school. They both reminded her of her little brother, Mikey, who was blindly enthusiastic about everything, and neither of them were as grave or serious as everyone else who had been watching her. It was like hanging around with friends rather than bodyguards.

Her little bubble of positivity promptly burst at the bookshop.

Morinna picked up new books every week – reading was the ideal activity for somebody with no friends or commitments. This week seemed much the same – she walked in, was smiled at by the woman behind the counter, and then picked a random section to choose three books from. This week was the classics section.

She wasn't a huge fan of the classics – she had picked up _Little Woman_ and hated it, and found herself constantly annoyed by the outdated views shown – but she did like to challenge herself to read widely and so began to pick through the books. Spotting Homer's _Odyssey_ , she picked it up and thrust it at Liam.

"You should read this," she informed him going back to the shelf.

He looked at it doubtfully. "Should I?"

Mason looked over his shoulder at it. "I read that in my world lit class. It was good."

"Case in point," Liam said, trying to hand it back.

Morinna shook her head at him. "You'll love it. Sea monsters, gods, a trip to the underworld… in fact, reading more mythology would probably be smart. I read hundreds of books on mythology when I changed."

"This is fiction."

"So is the story of Lycaon, the first werewolf. _You_ still exist," Morinna said shortly. "Read it. I'm forcing my hobbies onto you."

She knocked the book into the basket he was holding.

Suddenly she tuned into a conversation on the other side of the shop.

 _Slaughterhouse-Five? Classics, surely?_

 _I don't think it would be in classics. It's not quite old enough. Come on, you must have it – is it out of stock, maybe?_

Morinna straightened up, looking in the direction of the voices. She took a tentative step forward, Liam and Mason following her gaze.

Liam could smell the wave of terror that rolled over her and stiffened, looking around for the danger.

There was a tall guy standing at the counter. He could only see the back of him – light brown hair, cut short, and a big black leather jacket and dark jeans. Human.

"I can look in science fiction again, I guess. Maybe I missed it," he said, turning towards them. He spotted Morinna staring at him, and looked her up and down appreciatively.

"Hello," he said in a low voice, walking over in three strides. He paused, giving her a cocky grin. Then he looked over her shoulder, eyes lighting up as he spotted something. "And what do we have here?"

He brushed past her, heading straight for the shelf.

Mason and Liam turned to look at her, confused, just in time to watch her barrowing towards the door.

/The Bed Song by Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra

She was sleeping when Scott arrived to relieve Liam and Mason of their duties.

"Any updates?" Scott asked when Liam opened the door. He already knew the answer from Liam's tight jaw.

"She freaked out in the bookstore," Liam said quietly, moving back to let Scott in. "Ran out of the building. We found her having a panic attack in her car."

Mason nodded at Scott from the couch, his head in a textbook. Scott shot a subdued smile back.

"About?"

"We're not sure. Some guy hit on her, kind of? It made no sense."

"And now she's asleep," Scott observed, looking at her closed bedroom door. He paused to listen for any disturbance, chewing on his lip thoughtfully. "You know, I went to a lecture on grief last semester. It was meant to help us break bad news to clients – when their pet needs to be put down, that sort of thing – because we'd be able to predict reactions. We did just tell Morinna she was dying."

"But she was taking it so well," Mason piped up. "This morning she seemed… _annoyed_. Not upset or anything. And then she cheered up."

Scott shrugged, taking off his jacket. "Denial turns into anger. Maybe she finally realised how serious it was. I've got it from here, you guys can go."

They looked sadly at Morinna's bedroom door before gathering up their belongings. Scott took up a seat at the breakfast bar, a few metres away, and began listening to her breathe while he waited for Lydia to arrive.

She was stirring.

Every few moments Morinna's breath would hitch; he could hear her grasping at the thin cotton sheets and every so often letting out a small whimper. After a moment of deliberation, he tiptoed across to her bedroom and tentatively pushed open the door.

She had gone to bed fully clothed, wearing short black linen shorts with poppies on them and a simple strapless lace top. Only one of her arms was still in a black fringed short kimono, and she hadn't even bothered to take her strappy heels off – one had even pocked a hole into her comforter. She was curled into a foetal position, fabric crunched into her fist, facing away from him.

Scott carefully sank onto the bed next to her, lying on his side, and gingerly reached out to lay a hand on her upper arm. For a moment she tensed, and then she relaxed with a deep sigh as he had hoped she would. Gentle touch can help with a nightmare, he knew. Stiles had slept at his house enough times for Scott to understand that the best thing can be simply knowing that someone else is there.

With a shaky breath, Morinna rolled over. Scott froze. Her eyes were unfocused and glassy.

"Leo," she whispered, reaching out to stroke his cheek. She sounded dejected. "You promised, Leo."

Then her eyes closed.

Scott waited a few moments for her to say something else, and then carefully got up from the bed and picked up a blanket from the armchair, laying it over her. He could hear Lydia coming, her heels clacking down the hallway, so he slipped out of the room to let her in, a finger to his lips in preparation.

Lydia's cheeks were flushed, two high spots of pink in her pale face, and she held a huge tome that he assumed was from Deaton's extensive library. Her eyes were shining with a sort of determination rather than excitement. Lydia's eyes flicked to his mouth, giving him a little nod to acknowledge his warning to be quiet, and she transferred the weight of the book to her hip to give him a little side hug and kiss on the cheek.

"Sleeping?" she mouthed, tilting her head towards the closed bedroom door. She put the book carefully on the coffee table as he shut the door, flipping it open before she even sat down. She beckoned Scott over with one finger.

"This is the most basic overview of succubi I can find," she whispered. "Read it. Stiles and I think we have something wrong."

Scott sat down, scanning the page. "She only fits, like, two of the criteria," he murmured.

"Exactly. Not a succubus. Back to the drawing board," Lydia agreed. "Here's what I was thinking: I went _crazy_ for a few months trying to figure out what I was. If Morinna doesn't know, it's in her interest to cooperate with us so she can find out. So why isn't she telling us anything?"

Scott narrowed his eyes, wondering if he should tell her what Morinna had said in her sleep. He felt that even _he_ shouldn't know.

"She's a private person?"

Lydia frowned, shaking her head. "We're all freaks here. It doesn't make sense. Either she already knows or she's hiding something that she can do. Something that makes her a threat."

"But we already know about the emotion thing. That's the threat, and we haven't locked her up."

"There's something else. There has to be. I just haven't figured it out yet. You need to ask her," Lydia whispered.

"I have, remember?"

Lydia looked up suddenly. "Isaac. She asked him to visit her, right?"

Scott looked uncomfortable. "I mean, yeah, but I'm trying not to send him out on pack business. I don't want to scare him away again."

"Well, get over that," Lydia said dismissively. "She doesn't like any of us – except him. We send him here, tomorrow, to talk to her. All day. She'll let something slip if she trusts him. Don't even tell him what the plan is – if he looks like he's digging then she'll close up."

"What's the rush?" Scott asked. "We don't need to know what she is to protect her."

"Maybe not," Lydia conceded. "But it got worse this afternoon, Scott. I don't need to scream – yet – but we're running out of leads here. If we know what she is, we might know what wants to kill her."

/Fire In My Bones by Fleurie

 **Eight months before**

Morinna's parents had never let her go out. Not properly.

A few drinks at the pub with Elise after she turned eighteen, maybe, but she had never been to a club before. But now she was in London, with a three month lease in the annexe of a house in Dalston, with plenty of time to figure things out.

She had £750,000 in life insurance pay-out, three closets full of clothing she had bought in an effort to feel something, and absolutely nobody left in the world who cared for her. No surviving family, and definitely no friends.

This was how people made friends, right? In clubs?

Only the music was so loud she couldn't make conversation, and everybody seemed to be here with their friends already. Morinna had been leaning against the bar with a vodka lemonade and a light headache for about an hour now, and was contemplating going home.

So when Leo approached her, she really didn't stand a chance.

He was with two of his friends, who were flanking him almost deferentially, and he was approaching her in an almost predatorial fashion. He stopped in front of her, cocking his head appraisingly, and then finally extended a hand.

Tongue-tied, Morinna held out her own. Instead of shaking it, Leo had pulled it to his mouth and given it a lingering kiss.

"Leo," he had purred. "And what do we have here?"

She couldn't even remember if she had been able to utter her own name. Leo had pulled her onto the dancefloor, hands tight on her waist. When the lights came up she had followed him without question, almost entranced, and didn't even wonder how he had known where she lived when he led her right to her front door. She definitely didn't pause for thought before pulling him inside, into her bedroom, into her bed.

Waking up in the morning in his arms, utterly intoxicated and in love, Morinna had no idea what he had done to her.

She had no idea what he would do to her.


	12. Chapter 12

/Cast the Net by Sarah Blasko

The clock on her nightstand said it was 2am.

Morinna lay in bed for a few moments, blinking into the dark, feeling that her eyes were puffy. When she went to get up she realised that the narrow heel of her shoe was snagged on the sheets, and, sitting up, she noticed that she was still wearing the same outfit that she had put on before going out that morning.

Then she remembered the bookshop, and the tall man with the brown hair and leather jacket, and that god forsaken Kurt Vonnegut book, and she closed her eyes again, collapsing back against the pillows. She had been so sure, for just a second, that it was him. He had found her. Morinna screwed up her face, wrestling with tears, and allowed herself just one defeated whimper before she got up, face carefully expressionless.

Her apartment was quiet despite the guests. Only half of the little kitchenette lights were on, the rest of the apartment shadowy, and Morinna could see Lydia curled up on the couch with a heavy book open on the floor below her. Scott looked up as she walked in, already pouring her a cup of coffee. She supposed he had heard her coming. She gave him a grateful smile and crossed the room to the sideboard, pulling a purple blanket out of the bottom draw and going to spread it over the sleeping girl.

Scott smiled gently as she returned to the kitchen, holding out the steaming mug to her.

"Did you get enough sleep?" he asked in a low voice, inclining his head at her like a concerned parent.

Morinna shrugged, taking the drink from him. "I don't actually need to sleep, so more than enough."

Scott sat down at the bar, a curious expression on his face. Morinna hadn't noticed how attractive he was until then – in the dim light the strength of his features was played up, and his brown eyes sparkled.

"You don't? Why do it, then?" he asked, attentive.

Morinna pondered his question for a few seconds, sipping her coffee. "I'm not sure. It's like meditation, I guess. Relaxing. And dreams can still be useful for processing things."

"Did you dream just now?"

Morinna paused for a fraction too long, the walls Scott was used to coming back up. "I don't remember."

He nodded, leaning on his hand. "Isaac is coming over later," he told her.

"As long as you don't send _Stiles_ I'll take anybody," she said with a coy smile.

Scott chuckled. "I'm sure you'll grow to like him. One day."

"Well, I'm not sure that I have that long, so we don't have to worry," Morinna joked, watching the bubbles swirl around on the surface of her drink.

He looked at her searchingly, trying to draw an emotion from her features. "How are you taking it? The whole dying thing, I mean. Liam told me you freaked out earlier. There's still a chance we can stop it, you know. That's why we're here."

She shrugged. "Have you ever seen _Final Destination_?"

Scott looked bemused. "Subtle subject change, Morinna. No, I don't think so."

"Neither have I, coincidentally. But I know the gist of the plot – group of people escape death when they shouldn't have, are slowly killed off in freak accidents."

"And… you want to watch it?"

"I know I talk a lot of shit, Scott, but do have some patience. I'm getting to the point," chastised Morinna, giving him a bleak look. "So, as I was saying, even when they escape death it catches up with them eventually. They die in all sorts of horrible ways, too. In the end it would have been better for them to die with everyone else in the beginning, though I suppose that wouldn't be much of a movie. I'm rambling, I know, but my point is this: if all those characters in the movies had escaped the plane crash, or the roller coaster, or whatever it was that killed them all, and realised that not a second of their lives was guaranteed and that they were living on borrowed time, then death wouldn't have been so traumatic. Escaping death doesn't work out."

"That's a horrible way to look at things!" Scott protested. "You're basically saying that people try to avoid death just for the sake of it. That's not true. People don't want to die because they don't want to leave behind their family, or the people they love, or anything else about their lives."

Morinna considered this. "Perhaps," she conceded. "Perhaps I'm so blasé because everybody I love stayed on the great metaphorical airplane before it exploded on take-off. But is that such a bad thing? I know I should have died on the plane, so I won't be upset if I die this week. I got an extra year. I can't complain."

"You mean your family died in a plane crash? And you didn't?"

"It's a metaphor, Scott. Plot of the first _Final Destination_? There were no planes involved, it was a home invasion," she said emotionlessly. "This was a really elaborate way of saying I'm fine, not freaking out at all."

Scott ran through a long list of things he wanted to say – that she was obviously not fine if she had a panic attack earlier, that he was sorry about her family, that he disagreed wholly with her worldview, even the obvious question about the home invasion. For some reason though, all he could say was "It sounds like you just have nothing to live for."

Morinna gave him a sharp look, glaring at him over her coffee cup. "I always wanted to study philosophy," she said lightly. "Since I was little. I suppose it's morbid, thinking so much about the meaning of life and death and everything, but I find it fascinating."

He didn't comment on the subject change.

"Why don't you? College applications are starting soon."

She looked amused. "I'm still figuring things out," she said. "Let's try and survive the week first."

/Doing it to Death by The Kills

He was leaning nonchalantly against the wall in the hallway when she opened the door, conspicuously aloof. If their first meeting hadn't been him saving her ass from Lydia's psychotic boyfriend, Morinna might have been intimidated.

"You look pretty," was the first thing Isaac said to her, immediately cringing at his own words. He was telling the truth, though – she seemed bright-eyed and well rested, her pupils strangely large, only a small ring of blue around them, and her white blouse put some colour into her pale skin.

"You sound like you want something," Morinna commented drily, standing back against her door to let him pass.

"Coffee, if you're offering," he said smoothly, brushing past her as he entered. "Morning, team."

Scott raised a hand at him from the kitchen, where he was frying bacon at the stove, and Lydia gave him a grunt of acknowledgement, her nose in a book.

"If I ever don't have a full pot of coffee, assume I'm dead," said Morinna, leaning out into the corridor to look both ways along it before shutting the door and sliding the deadbolt across. "In fact, safely assume I am dead even _with_ coffee."

"Would you consider yourself dead, then?" Lydia asked, looking up from her work. "Undead, even?"

Morinna seemed to realise what she had said and pressed her lips together. "How could I ever know, truly?" she said in a way that was both dramatic and evasive, nudging Scott out of the way so she could get into a cupboard. "Nice apron, Scott, where did you get it?"

Scott looked down at the floral embroidered apron around his waist and snorted, poking an applique butterfly. "Somebody with terrible taste, clearly."

Morinna lightly cuffed him on the back of the head, jostling him for counter space as he transferred bacon onto a plate, laughing at her. Suddenly she stiffened and rounded on Lydia.

" _No_ ," she said firmly, voice raised, eyes full of fury.

"No?" Lydia repeated, looking doubtfully at her, hand paused mid page-turn.

"Your boyfriend is coming over. No. No to – to all of that."

"How do you _do_ that?" Scott asked, mouth hanging open. "Are you psychic?"

"I'm _something_."

Lydia rolled her eyes, standing up and pulling her green cardigan on. "Stiles is picking me up to go and get breakfast. Don't worry, I told him to wait in the parking lot."

Morinna slammed her mug down moodily and crossed to the huge window, staring down into the carpark and then back at Lydia, giving her a withering look.

"That's why he's walking towards the building, I'm sure."

Lydia scowled. "He _said_ he'd wait. Look, Morinna, he probably just wants to apologi-"

"I'm sure he does," Morinna muttered, not sounding convinced. "Isaac, your coffee is ready. Now, everyone, let's hide everything flammable because a pyromaniac is coming over."

Isaac snorted, picking up his drink and stealing some of Scott's bacon while he was close.

There was a tentative knock at the door, Lydia standing up to open it. Morinna dashed past her, almost dancing, and slid the deadbolt back across. She opened the door slowly, giving Stiles a catlike grin. He glowered at her.

"Stiles," Morinna said in a low voice. "I'm so happy that you came all this way to beg for my forgiveness."

Solemnly, Stiles dropped to his knees, head bowed and hands clasped. "I feel awful about what I did to you, Morinna. It was dumb of me. I sincerely apologise for my behaviour. I hope you can find it in your hea-"

" _Stiles,_ " Lydia said sharply from over Morinna's shoulder, arms crossed.

Stiles looked around himself for a moment and then leapt to his feet.

"Get out of my head!" he shouted, squaring up to Morinna.

"Get out of my apartment," she replied sweetly, retreating to the kitchen and scooping up a magazine on the way. Stiles swore she was practically skipping.

"I'm not even in your apartment! I'm in the hallway! And I don't know what _you're_ grinning at!" Stiles ranted, glaring at Isaac who held his hands up, feigning innocence. "Scott, are you just gonna let her do that?"

Scott shrugged, picking at his food, clearly suppressing laughter.

"He's not _my_ alpha," Morinna pointed out, flicking through the pages. "Ooh, horoscopes!"

"Please don't do your mind control thing, Morinna, it's rude," Lydia sighed wearily, picking up her book.

"So is trying to set –"

"We get it!" Stiles cried. "I threatened you with fire. That was wrong of me. I should think before I act. I'm _sorry_ , okay!"

Morinna pursed her lips, eyes trained pointedly on her reading material. Lydia walked towards the front door, calling a simple goodbye to her friends as she went.

"I know he deserves it," Scott said in a gentle voice, coming to stand over Morinna. "But I think, if you tried, you and Stiles would really get on."

Morinna gave him a dazzling smile. "Forgiveness is for the weak."

/Crowded Places by Banks

"I'm bored," Morinna murmured.

Isaac could tell. She had changed positions six times in the last ten minutes, and was currently hanging over the edge of the sofa with her back on the seat and her legs curled around her backrest.

"Me too," he agreed, looking down at her.

"You can go, you know," she said neutrally. "I'm totally fine. I'll call if an assassin breaks in."

"Funny," Isaac said, deadpan. "What do you want to do?"

"Steal the Declaration of Independence."

"Wow, are you a comedian?" Isaac said sarcastically, side-eying her

She huffed and swung her legs forward, tumbling backwards off the sofa. She knocked her knee on the coffee table on the way down, yelping, and ending up on her knees with her hair a mess.

"Well, apparently I'm not a gymnast," she muttered, standing up and brushing dust off the front of her navy high-waist shorts.

Morinna walked to the kitchen, hoisting herself up with a knee on the counter to get to one of the highest cupboards. She pulled out a full bottle of whisky, setting it down and jumping back onto the floor.

Isaac narrowed his eyes at it as she pulled two short glasses out of another cupboard.

"Isn't it a bit early?"

"Sounds like quitter talk to me, Isaac."

"Well, I don't need any. It takes a lot to get me drunk. Wolf metabolism, and all."

He remembered the plane journey back to the US a week ago, when the fog had just been lifting from his brain and everything seemed bright and new. The air hostess had come around with her trolley, offering him a drink, and he had eyed the little bottles of whiskey and bourbon and vodka and then turned down the offer of alcohol for the first time in a year. For Melissa, he had resolved.

Morinna rolled her eyes. "Boring. Well, you'll just have to drink a lot of it, Isaac. We're getting smashed."

"Where did you even get it? You're underage."

" _You're_ underage. I just made the cashier _really_ want to sell it to me," she explained, a mischievous smile on her face. She put the glasses onto the coffee table, pouring a generous serving of whiskey into each of them. "Down the hatch."

Isaac decided far too quickly not to argue, waiting for her to lift up her own glass so that they were in sync. The whiskey slipped down his throat like honey, the way alcohol only could if you had been drinking it like water for months. Heat unfurled in the pit of his stomach, and he was reminded of a lost month in a basement in Cuba.

Morinna was grimacing, half of her drink still in the glass. "I hate whiskey," she groaned, sticking her tongue out.

Isaac gave her a lazy smile. "Why are you drinking it?"

She gave him an even look over the rim of her drink, knocking back the rest of it, her nose wrinkling. "I've had a rough day," she said sardonically, refilling the glasses, even though Isaac had been with her since early morning.

"I'm not sure that just drinking a lot for no reason is going to make you any less bored," he said sagely, thinking that if Scott were here they would be subject to at least a disapproving look if not a lecture on healthy coping mechanisms.

"Shut up, Isaac," she said. "Anyway, we're not doing it for no reason. We're playing a game."

"A game? Doing shots isn't a game, Morinna."

"Yes, Isaac, a game. Didn't you have a childhood?"

Morinna saw him flinch slightly and deliberated for a moment before deciding not to pry. "Ever heard of never have I ever?" she asked, enthusiastic.

"Never have I ever? Is this middle school?"

Morinna shushed him impatiently, pushing his whiskey to his side of the coffee table. "Pick your glass up. I'm trying to get to know you."

Isaac conceded, picking up his drink and watching her expectantly.

"Never have I ever… gotten a tattoo."

Isaac shrugged and took a sip of his drink.

"Well, now you have to show me," Morinna urged, scanning the visible skin of his arms. "I bet it's on your ass. Am I right or am I right?"

"You don't get to ask follow up questions. That's not in the rules," Isaac dismissed her. "Never have I ever gone skinny-dipping."

Morinna didn't drink, smirking triumphantly. "Never have I ever run away from home."

Isaac glared at her, raising the glass to his lips. "Scott told you, then?"

"Scott didn't tell me anything," Morinna said, shifting closer to him with interest. "How old were you?"

"Eighteen," he said shortly. Morinna's eyes widened. "Never have I ever had a bad break up."

Morinna's eyes grew even bigger. She lifted her glass, drinking the whole thing.

"Got you," Isaac whispered competitively, narrowing his eyes. Morinna sneered at him and seized up the bottle of whiskey to repour.

"Never have I ever had a relationship last more than a month."

Isaac contemplated this, holding his whiskey up to the light and staring into it. Finally he took a long sip.

"Never have I ever had a good relationship with my parents," he said quietly.

Morinna's eyelids flickered, and she licked her lips before taking a gulp. Then she cast her eyes down for a second, as if thinking, and finally mumbled "I'm bored of this game."

Isaac shrugged, indifferent, finishing the rest of his drink. "What do you want to do now?"

She looked up at him, biting her lip. Her eyes darted to his mouth.

"Morinna…" he warned, but she closed the gap between them, knotting her hands into his dark curly hair. Isaac put his hands gently on her waist. She smelt intoxicating, like toffee and spent matches, and she was kissing him hard, pressing their foreheads together. She clambered over the couch cushions, swinging a knee over so she was straddling him.

Isaac melted into the kiss, pulling her closer by the hips. It had been an age since he had been kissed, since anybody had touched him like this.

He pulled away.

Morinna blinked at him, two tears streaking down her cheeks. She took a shaky breath, eyes flickering between his lips and eyes.

Isaac gave her a sad little smile, moving his hands to her shoulders.

"You don't want this," he told her delicately, dabbing at the tears with his thumbs.

She sniffed. "Yes, I do," she said, putting her hands on his cheeks. She flexed her hips, grinding against him, and brushed her lips against his. He sighed and clenched his jaw, lifting her up by the waist and putting her back onto the couch next to him.

"No, you don't," he said simply, crossing his arms. "Whatever you're trying to forget, Morinna, this isn't the answer."

She looked down, eyelids fluttering, and then glowered at him, standing up and swiping the bottle of whiskey from the table. Morinna stormed across the apartment and into her bedroom, slamming the door.


	13. Chapter 13

_/ Tell Her You Love Her by Echosmith_

"If you take me to the diner, I will be forced to kill you," Lydia warned, only half joking.

A semi-restful period in the hospital, couple by spending almost every night with Stiles' strong arm wrapped around her waist, staving off the nightmares, meant that she was feeling far more well rested than she had in the days leading up to what would now be knows only as the diner incident. While Lydia still resented all of the supernatural stuff that was interfering with her perfect summer, she was at peace with it.

That didn't mean she wanted to go back to the diner and relive it all. Even if, as Stiles had been insisting, they did the _best_ waffles in all of Beacon Hills.

"I'd never take you anywhere you really didn't want to go," Stiles reassured her, drumming on the steering wheel. "Of course, I wouldn't complain if you suddenly decided that you wanted to go somewhere with a superior range of waffle toppings –"

" _Stiles_."

"Okay, Starbucks it is!" Stiles said brightly, beaming at his girlfriend like it had been his idea all along.

Lydia had to suppress a laugh. She was in an exceedingly good mood, despite Morinna's earlier antics. This was the first time she and Stiles had gone out on a date since they had moved back for the summer, and she finally felt like she was getting things back on track. She had decided to treat being a banshee like a shitty part-time summer job. It didn't need to leak into the rest of her summer – she only needed to think about it when she was on shift. Morinna could annoy her for a few hours a day at most.

They pulled into the coffee shop carpark singing along to the radio, and Stiles ran around the jeep to open Lydia's door before she had the chance to even touch the handle. He made her sit down while he went to the counter to order, despite her protests, because her feet were still carefully bandaged and healing from her recent adventures.

Stiles was clearly desperate to make this the perfect breakfast date because he couldn't sit still. His eyes darted around, checking on everything, eager to anticipate problems before they came into fruition. Lydia was reminded of their first date, Stiles taking her out to dinner after a decade of wanting it. He had turned down five different tables before they were seated for a range of reasons, from vulnerability to a breeze from the entrance to proximity to the kitchen door, which he thought might get noisy. She hadn't found him annoying the way she would have done if it had been anyone else. She had felt safe, utterly safe. Like she could finally relax.

"Is it okay?" Stiles asked, looking concerned as she sipped her coffee.

He could rattle off her complicated order like it was his social security number, but the baristas were often caught off guard.

"It's fine, Stiles," Lydia smiled. "Stop worrying. Everything's perfect."

Stiles let out the breath he hadn't known he was holding. "Good. How was your night? Morinna was nicer to you than she is to me, I hope?"

Lydia wrinkled her nose. "Scott said he thinks we're too similar."

"Well, that can't be true because I love you and I think she's insane."

"That's terrible logic and you know it," Lydia said, grinning. "She's just a bit full on, I guess. Maybe she'll settle down. On the bright side, I didn't see her a lot last night. She was asleep while I was awake and vice versa. I got a lot of research done."

"And you've figured out what she is?" Stiles asked hopefully, sipping his hot chocolate. Lydia decided not to tell him that he had whipped cream on his nose. There was something awfully cute about it.

"I figured out at least a hundred things that she definitely _isn't_ ," she said, uncharacteristically optimistic. "But it got me thinking about the bigger picture. There are so many things in Deaton's books that we had no idea existed, and almost all of them could blend in with humans if they truly wanted to. Remember when the deadpool came out and we were shocked about how many supernaturals there were in Beacon Hills?"

"Yeah, also known as the only time I've ever been happy to be left out of something."

"Funny. Well, here comes Morinna, causing trouble out of nowhere, and we only find her through some kind of banshee luck. How many other supernaturals are in Beacon Hills, and how many of them are dangerous? Is there any way to know?"

"No," Stiles supplied. "Which means there's no real way to protect the town."

"Precisely. And I don't see any way we could figure out who they are, anyway. Dead end. So I looked at it a different way – why is Morinna here in the first place? Here of all places? Beacon Hills is hardly the first place you think of when you decide to move to the US."

Stiles mulled this over, catching up in seconds. His eyes lit up in understanding. "The Nemeton. It acts as a beacon."

Lydia looked triumphant.

"I don't have a solution for the Morinna situation. But I _do_ have an idea for stopping ten more situations like it appearing."

Their eyes met across the table, equally confident and determined.

"We have to stop the Nemeton."

/ _Don't Go by Rae Morris_

She didn't even like whiskey.

Morinna glared at the bottle, sat a few inches away from her foot. She wasn't sure why she'd bought it. It had seemed like the perfect drink for self-destruction, she supposed.

She hadn't felt this embarrassed since she had changed. Leo had made her feel small, feel ten inches tall, and that had hurt her enough. This was different. This time she felt big. Exposed. Unable to hide.

A violent sob tore through her chest and she stuffed her fist into her mouth, trying to muffle it. Isaac was sat on the other side of the door, his back against the wood like hers, a few inches away. If she listened she could hear him breathing, even and certain.

Morinna held her breath, trying to slow her breathing. Her lips and fingertips felt numb. All she wanted was to throw that stupid whiskey bottle at the wall, to scream into her pillow, to break entirely. It was too much, all of it was too much. She couldn't keep it together anymore.

She wanted to lose control.

But if she did, Isaac would die.

It had already been over 24 hours since she had fed. Morinna knew that the grey of her eyes had narrowed to a tiny ring by now. She was used to drinking half a pint a day, split between morning and evening, spread out to reduce cravings. There were two pints of blood locked up in the vegetable draw of her refrigerator, carefully out of sight, but she hadn't been able to go near them since Scott and his pack began watching her.

Morinna always chose to drink blood when she could, rather than feed on emotion. If she went to a blood bank then nobody was hurt. There was no way to access pre-packaged human emotions, and taking both those or blood directly from the source was exceedingly dangerous. It was easy to go too far.

She couldn't let herself feed on Isaac accidentally, which meant that she needed to restrain herself, and she wasn't doing a particularly good job of it so far.

Isaac sighed on the other side of the door, stretching out his arms and then settling back to his position. Morinna retrieved the whiskey bottle and poured carefully into the lid, her shaking hands spilling a few drops onto the hardwood floor where they soaked into the grain and faded away. She counted to three and tipped the alcohol back into her mouth, letting it sit for a second, the bitter taste pulling her thoughts back into focus, and swallowed, slumping against the door and listening.

He was tapping on his leg, or maybe his arm, a rapid but distracted rhythm. He was listening to her, she was sure, probably part of his guard dog duty. Making sure she didn't escape or transform into a demonic entity or something.

"Sorry," she said quietly.

It was easier to apologise to someone with wolf hearing. She could just whisper the word into the empty room in front of her and he heard it all the same.

"It's okay," he said in a low voice. "Are you coming out?"

Morinna sucked on her lower lip. "I think I'd like to sit here for a while, if that's alright."

"Of course," he said, not moving.

She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, resting her head. She could hear Isaac's heartbeat when it was this silent, strangely comforting. It reminded her of when she was younger and used to lie very still in bed, hearing her heartbeat thumping steadily as if to say _you are here you are here you are here_.

"Isaac?"

"Yeah?"

"You said you ran away. Earlier, when we were playing never have I ever."

There was a pause. "Yeah?"

"Why did you do it?"

She didn't think he was going to answer. He didn't say anything for a full minute, to the point where Morinna had stopped listening. Then, in a small, almost childlike voice:

"I had a girlfriend. She died. I watched her die."

He heard her take a sharp breath.

"And did it work? Did running away help?" she asked, sounding desperate and close to tears.

"Not really," he said, strangled. "I'm back and it hurts like it did when it happened."

She let out a defeated sob. "That's what I was afraid of."

Isaac didn't reply. He was hunched over, hands pulling his head into his knees. She was there, flickering through his mind. Pale skin, dark brown hair, high cheekbones. Looking at him over her shoulder, reaching a hand out to slip her fingers through his. Jaw clenched, back straight, bow strung, eyes narrowed at a target. Wide eyed, blood bubbling between her lips. Slack jawed. Empty.

Gone.

"Isaac?" Morinna gasped out, breathless.

"Yes?" he replied, voice cracking.

She didn't answer, pausing for a few moments. Then he heard her moving, shifting onto her knees to shuffle away from the door and turning around.

The handle came down, slowly, and Isaac repositioned himself, facing her bedroom, wiping a stray tear from his face with the back of his hand.

Morinna pulled the door open, sat back on her heels, blinking numbly. They regarded each other for a few moments, both trying to steady their breathing. Then he opened his arms, reaching towards her, and she fell into him, a fresh wave of tears breaking free.

Isaac pulled her closer, an arm around her back, fingers curled around the back of her neck, and he cried into the top of her head, shaking beneath her.

Morinna felt her fangs descend.

 **A/N: I'd love to apologise for the cliff-hanger, but I'm not actually sorry.**

 **If you can take thirty seconds to leave a quick comment or review it will make my day!**

 **Persephone xo**


	14. Chapter 14

/ _Catch the Wind by High Highs_

"You're insane," Deaton said decisively, crossing his arms.

"Does that mean you're volunteering to do it for us?" Stiles asked hopefully, giving the doctor what he hoped was a bright, _convincing_ look.

Deaton gave him a withering look, retreating to his desk and picking up a pen. "I'm an emissary, Mr Stilinski. I know things. This isn't my area, and it's not your area either."

"What are you writing?" Lydia inquired sanguinely, hopping down from the examination table to tilt her head at his page. "A list of ingredients?"

"An antibiotics prescription. Mr Puddles has a kidney infection. Look, this isn't a recipe you're talking about, Lydia. This is a very powerful ritual. A very _dangerous_ ritual."

"When has danger stopped us before?"

"You were trying to save lives before. Wanting to shut down the Nemeton is a very admirable aspiration, but it's simply not worth the risk," Deaton said dismissively. "And even that is besides the point. Neither of you is a mage. Humans who mess with magic get themselves killed."

"Do you have any odds on _banshees_ who mess with magic?"

"Lydia, maybe he's right," Stiles cut in reluctantly. "It's not worth dying over. You've come close to death enough already."

She rolled her eyes. "And here I am, alive. _Those_ are some good odds. Besides, this is a preventative measure. We're going to kick ourselves if we don't do it now, and the Nemeton ends up killing us."

Stiles knew why she was doing it. She was desperate for even the slightest chance of a normal life, a life where she didn't feel like a hidden part of her was leeching away everything she held dear.

"Things have been pretty quiet here all year," Deaton pointed out. "Maybe we can reconsider if things get desperate, but for now? No."

Lydia looked forlorn, pursing her lips. "I didn't want to do this, Deaton, but I have to tell you that if you don't point me in the right direction then I will start pulling together a ritual based on what I can find on the internet."

Now Deaton _and_ Stiles rounded on her, looking shocked.

"That is without a _doubt_ the most stupid, irresponsible thing I have ever heard even _suggested_!" Deaton cried, standing up with a start.

Lydia nodded, very serious. "I suppose it was my time to finally do something idiotic, after all these years. Rituals can't be that hard, anyway. I already know Latin."

He glared at her, crossing the room to the cupboard where she knew he kept most of his books. He pulled out a large midnight blue volume, begrudgingly handing it to her.

"The principles of ritual. Perhaps it will drive home how truly foolish this idea is," he said, a deep frown on his face. "I hope you know that I will be updating Scott on this conversation."

Lydia smiled.

 _/ You Belong to Me by Cat Pierce_

Isaac smelled the blood before Morinna could even process what had happened.

He pulled away, holding her at arms-length, a look of horror on his face.

Morinna's fangs had sunk deep into her lips, thick dark blood welling up. Isaac stared at it, open mouthed, not quite connecting the dots.

She could taste the blood, metallic and bitter.

"Go," she rasped, pulling his hands from her shoulders. She clawed at her neck, just above her collar bones, chest heaving. " _Go_."

"What happened?" Isaac asked, fascinated, reaching out to touch the blood.

She meant to swipe his fingers away, push him towards the door. She didn't mean to hurt him.

She had lost control.

Morinna's hands betrayed her. They snatched up Isaac's wrist, the pulse inside it singing to her, and brought it to her lips. Her tongue licked at the skin, slowly, languorously. He didn't move, didn't breathe. He watched her, captivated.

She grazed his thin skin with her fangs, lining them up, finding the perfect point to puncture and feed.

They had just pierced when he realised what had happened.

It was too late.

Morinna's eyes rolled back into her head, lids fluttering shut. Her jaw was clamped around him, small hands holding his arm in place with a strength he hadn't anticipated. He could feel her sucking at the wound, feel the blood leaving his body.

Isaac had imagined what it felt like before. How Allison had felt, bleeding out, feeling her life slowly slip away. He'd figured it was a lot like fainting – people fainted after blood tests all the time.

He did feel lightheaded, but he had never anticipated it being like this. His heart jumped, his stomach fluttered. He felt heat pool in the pit of his stomach, curling like a snake, his mouth hanging open, trousers tightening.

Lust rolled over him, setting every one of his nerves alight.

He reached out, uncertainly, unintentionally, and let the back of his hand stroke her hair, brush down her cheek. She opened her glassy eyes, staring up at him, half unfocused. Slowly, she lowered his wrist from her lips, leaning in, closer and closer. Her mouth was stained a deep scarlet.

For just a second, Isaac thought she was going to kiss him. He shut his eyes, ready, wanting. Her fingers curled into his hair.

She yanked his head to the side, lips suddenly at his throat. She kissed at the pulse there, indolently, salaciously, savouring the taste of his skin, the promise of blood below it.

Isaac ran his hands along the sides of her body, feeling the generous curve from her breasts to her waists to her hips. He could feel the pressure again, the pin pricks lined up and ready to strike.

"Morinna," he moaned, chin tilting forward, surrendering to her.

She jerked backwards, falling hard on her wrist, scrambling away from him on the polished wood of the floor. Isaac watched her, dazed, not quite comprehending anything but the absence of those fangs, of the dizzying feeling of her taking his blood.

Her eyes fluttered, revulsion painting her features. She wiped at her mouth, smearing blood across her cheek, tears welling in her eyes.

"Run," she choked out, struggling across the floor to the kitchenette.

Isaac heard the refrigerator open. He couldn't quite get his legs to cooperate. He crawled clumsily after her, rounding the corner. She was huddled in the corner where two cupboards met, eyes closed, guzzling at a blood bag.

His arms gave out under him, his head suddenly hitting cold tile.

Isaac closed his eyes.

/ _Go Home by Julien Baker_

 **8 months before**

 _He loves me._

That's how she got through the first week. He stayed with her for much of it, unlocking the door and slipping inside whenever he could, a few hours a day. He brought her books sometimes, crumpled, well-loved books. Science fiction, mostly, though she didn't normally read that genre.

 _He keeps you here because he loves you. This is protection. Nothing can ever hurt you again._

They had someone posted outside the door day and night. Every hour someone would stick their head in, stare at her for a few moments. She would stare back, curled up on the narrow bed or sat in the threadbare armchair. One time somebody caught her on her tip toes on the mattress, hand stuck through the bars of the window. She had been trying to entice a sparrow to sit on her finger. The guy had thought that she was trying to escape and thrown her across the room, eyes glowing red, claws dug into her shoulders.

She had told Leo about that. He said he'd talk to him.

It took her a few days to understand that they were werewolves. Leo wasn't much of a talker, and he tended to get annoyed when she asked questions so she hadn't liked to push it.

She had walked into her shackles, technically. Leo had taken her by the wrists and said he had to go to work, but he wanted her to stay at his place where she would be safe. She hadn't argued, even when he had locked the door.

Morinna was scared.

It had only been a few months since she had seen it happen. There was a noise downstairs, in her living room, and she had gone to investigate and found her mother on the floor, lips blue, still gasping for breath. Her father's hand was visible, framed by the doorway to the dining room, jerking slightly and the creature finished its meal.

It had laughed when it had seen her, licking its lips and advancing on her. Screaming had made it laugh even harder, cackling, a painful rumble in the back of its throat.

"Pretty," it had commented, sinking its fangs into her neck.

Hugging the yellowing pillow, Morinna was grateful for her prison.

It would never find her here.

 **A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews on the last chapter! I stayed up late to get this one done for you.**

 **Persephone xo**


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: Sorry that this took a little longer than usual! I've been moving, unpacking and writing a thesis so I am absolutely wiped out.

A huge thank you for all the lovely reviews!

Persephone xo

/Losing You by Aquilo

He felt like he was falling.

Time had ceased to exist. How long had he been like this, he wondered? What had he been doing before he had fallen? Would he ever land?

He tried to move his hands but he seemed to have misplaced them.

Morinna was crying. He could hear her taking short, gasping breaths, trying to calm herself down. He wondered what she was upset about.

He tried to open his eyes but he couldn't remember how.

"Please wake up, Isaac," she whispered. "Please. Please, I'm so, so sorry."

He was under the sea, floating. The weight of the ocean was on top of him, suffocating him gently.

He drifted to the surface.

"Oh my god," she gasped. "You're okay. Thank god you're okay."

Her hands were on his cheeks, in his hair, clutching at him like she wasn't sure he was real. Her face was blotchy, tear-streaked, eyes huge and grey and red rimmed.

"Why…" Isaac began, his tongue too heavy in his mouth. "Why wouldn't I be okay?"

Morinna closed her eyes, fresh tears squeezing out from beneath the lids, her face contorting into a grimace. "I'm sorry, Isaac. I'm so, so, sorry."

He frowned, moving his shoulders lethargically. "Why?" he slurred. He squinted down at the purple blanket that Morinna had wrapped around him.

She swallowed, hard. "I, uh, I didn't want to move you until you woke up," she explained, shifting his head off of her knees and standing up.

To Isaac's surprise she reached down and scooped him up like he weighed nothing, carrying him to the low blue sofa and putting him down gently.

Isaac looked uncomfortable. "I've never felt less cool," he joked.

Morinna ignored him, walking to the kitchen and pulling some orange juice out of the fridge.

"You're confused," she told him, not looking in his direction. "It'll fade soon, and then you'll remember. I just want you to know that I didn't mean to hurt you, and you're safe. You don't need to run. There's no risk of it happening again today."

Isaac propped himself up on his elbow, staring at her. "You hurt me?"

She kept a straight face, returning to kneel down next to him, smoothing his hair back from his clammy forehead. "I need you to drink this juice. You lost blood. You need to get your blood sugar back up."

He took the glass from her, eying it before taking a sip. "You…" he said slowly. "You bit me?"

Morinna nodded minutely. "I need you to know how sorry I am. I didn't want to. I just… lost control."

Isaac nodded, shifting slightly further from her.

"You're a vampire," he said hoarsely.

She nodded again. "You're not going to change. It doesn't work like that. You've already healed, mostly. Everything is going to be okay. Now, rest, Isaac. You should feel a bit better in a few hours."

Morinna stood up, walking towards her bedroom.

"What are you doing?"

"Packing," she said, her voice hollow. "Go to sleep. You'll feel better soon."

He was so, so, tired.

He woke up to lips on his forehead.

"I'm sorry this happened, Isaac," Morinna whispered to him, her face looming over him. "I'm going to go now. The rent is paid here until April. Consider it an apology gift."

Isaac sat up, blinking. Morinna pulled away, picking up a trench coat from the floor. Two suitcases were by the door.

"You can't go," he whispered, his head swimming.

She gave him a pitiful look. "Endorphins. They get released when I bite people. You feel attached to me now, Isaac, in love with me, even, but it isn't real. By tomorrow you'll understand what's happened and you'll hate me."

He stroked his wrist, feeling the crust of the dried blood where she had sunk her fangs in. The wounds were long healed.

"I understand just fine," he insisted. "You had to feed so you bit me. But I'm okay now. No harm done."

Morinna looked away, gathering up her purse.

"You understand _what_ happened, fine. But you're not yourself. You'll be revolted by it when the rush fades," she said decisively.

"But you can't go. Lydia said you'd die. We have to protect you."

"Scott's going to kill me himself when he hears what I did to you. I'm a predator, Isaac, a threat. He'd be stupid not to," she explained, her hand on the door handle.

Isaac scrambled off the couch, his feet tangled in the blanket. The room pitched sideways, and then she was there again, holding onto him. He whimpered into the crook of her neck.

"Why does it feel like this?" he asked desperately, clutching onto her arms.

"You lost a lot of blood. It would have killed you if you weren't a wolf. You're still replacing it," Morinna said gently, pushing him back onto the couch cushions. "Go back to sleep."

"Please don't leave," he said, his voice breaking, catching her wrists.

She regarded him mournfully. "You'll understand very soon," she consoled him, kissing him on the forehead. "Stay lying down. And don't follow me."

Morinna straightened up, pulling her forearms deftly from his grasp, and marched to the door, picking up her suitcases on the way. Isaac watched her go, feeling almost unable to breathe.

The door closed with a click. It stayed that way for only three seconds before Isaac got up, flinging the blanket to the floor, and tried to follow her.

The elevator doors were just shutting when he reached the hallway so he threw himself towards the stairs. He had to grip the bannister, stumbling down two or three steps at a time. His heart was racing in a way it hadn't since he'd changed, his forehead pasty, dark curls sticking to it. He had to pause on the second floor landing to retch, his knees weak enough to force him to drop to the floor.

By the time he got out to the carpark she was gone.

Isaac curled up on the gravel floor, sobbing.

/Idfc by Blackbear

"Where are we going?" Malia asked, her arms wrapped around herself.

"Hiking, like I said," Lydia said brightly, looking straight ahead.

"You're dressed for it," Malia said sarcastically, eying Lydia's four-inch Chelsea boots.

Lydia shook the comment off, sticking her hands in her pockets. They were traipsing through the Beacon Hills preserve somewhat aimlessly. Lydia was trying to find the Nemeton. She hadn't quite got around to mentioning that to Malia yet.

"So, you and Scott talked it out?" she said abruptly, changing the subject.

Malia shrugged. "We didn't really talk. We just… went back to how things were."

"Sounds healthy," Lydia muttered.

"He's just so busy!" Malia sighed. "Watching Morinna. If Stiles hadn't flipped out then we'd be fine, but now Scott is taking all the shifts that should have been his. The only time I see him he's either with _her_ or he's too tired to talk properly."

Lydia narrowed her eyes. "You hate her too, don't you?"

"I don't _hate_ her. I feel like in a different place, at a different time, we could be friends. She was cool when we went out the other day. It's just… weird?"

"Because we don't know anything about her," Lydia supplied, kicking at the leaves in her path.

"She's a private person."

"I feel like _I'm_ usually the one trying to get _you_ to give people a chance."

Malia gave her a sly look. "How's that for character development?"

She snorted. "I'm proud of you."

"Thank you. So, why are we really here?"

"I prefer the old Malia," Lydia lamented, earning a dirty look from her friend. "Fine. We're trying to find the Nemeton."

Malia stopped dead. "And Scott asked you to do this?" she clarified, staring after Lydia, who kept walking wordlessly. "And you _told_ Scott you were doing this?"

"He's just too busy to talk," Lydia called back, suppressing a smile.

Malia glowered, walking faster to catch up. "Why don't you guys have, like, a _map_ by now?"

"It would be useless. The Nemeton hides itself. You can follow a map and walk right past it without seeing it."

"Then how do you know you're going to find it at all?"

"I'm hoping it can tell that I need it and appear. Like the room of requirement!"

Malia looked at her blankly.

"Don't worry," Lydia said. "Apparently wolf eyes can pick it out, but that will only work when we're near. Speaking of, can you check we're not right on top of it."

Malia sighed, reluctant, but closed her eyes. They were an icy blue when she opened them, and she turned slowly on the spot. "Nothing jumps out at me."

Lydia nodded and carried on walking. "Stiles and I are trying to stop it from drawing people here," she explained. "We can help Morinna, fine, Scott wants to do his protector thing. But we can't be everyone's personal supernatural problem solvers. I'm not even sure why I was drawn to her, there's absolutely nothing linking us."

"Maybe there will be. Scott said she and Isaac got along."

Lydia gave her a knowing look. "Friends, sure, but that won't go anywhere. They're both too self-destructive, it would be a disaster."

There was a long silence as they walked, Malia pausing every few minutes to peer into the treeline.

"This is useless," she said eventually. "The preserve is huge. We can't check every inch. We'll be here all night!"

Lydia stopped, looking frustrated. "Well, we can't leave until we find it. I'm trying to extract a piece of it for the ritual."

"Sounds like a great idea," Malia said sarcastically, folding her arms and begrudgingly scanning the forest for the Nemeton once more. "Call Scott. I'm serious. This sounds like a terrible idea and he'll be angry if you do it behind his back."

Lydia considered this for a moment, continuing ahead through the trees with renewed vigour.

"No," she called back. "But I do have an idea."

She stopped in a small clearing, turning slowly on one foot and surveying the area. She stopped, back to Malia, and clenched her fists.

An ear-splitting echoed around them, bouncing off the trees, amplifying.

A scream.

/Sellers of Flowers by Regina Spektor

They were just heading out to grab dinner when he heard it.

The plan was to go to Beacon Hills café and pick up food for both Melissa and the Sherriff, taking the opportunity to check if there had been any developments at both the hospital and the Sherriff's station, before swinging round to pick up Malia from Lydia's house so she and Scott could go and take the night shift. Stiles had parked the jeep haphazardly on the streets outside the McCall house, Scott pulling on some sneakers on the porch. He had looked up suddenly, the colour draining from his face.

"You okay, buddy?" Stiles had called over, pushing his door open and jumping out of the cab.

"Lydia screamed," he said shortly. "Where is she? Is she with Morinna?"

Stiles looked torn. "I don't think so."

"She had a scream building for Morinna, it must be her."

"Hey, Scotty, I don't think she's there. Listen, you go check at Morinna's and I'll go look for Lydia," he reasoned.

Scott was sure he wasn't saying something, but he had no time to go and check. He nodded, jumping onto his bike and tearing off down the road.

Stiles climbed back into the Jeep, not bothering with his seatbelt as he pulled out into the road. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, dialling Lydia as he drove. She didn't pick up.

He had hated this stupid idea. Sat in a coffee shop with her it had seemed so simple, a panacea, the solution to all of their problems – past and present. Deaton had turned him off the idea at the clinic. They hadn't seen Deaton speak so certainly about a problem since they had met him. He had been adamant that it was a terrible idea. But still, Stiles had faith in Lydia. If anybody could do the impossible then it was his girlfriend.

Until they had read the book. _The Principles of Witchcraft_ , which made it very clear that power could neither be created or destroyed. Lydia had theorised that, to deactivate the Nemeton, they would have to create some kind of power vacuum and transfer the power into something else. Stiles, deeply conscious of the habit of the supernatural to attach itself to unwilling and inappropriate hosts, had drawn the line there. While the Nemeton wasn't inherently evil, it was enough power to wreak havoc in the wrong hands.

So, they had compromised. She could bring a piece of the Nemeton back to practice rituals on, a tiny spark of power, so that any result wouldn't be apocalyptically disastrous. If Lydia could deactivate that piece without recompense then they could discuss a full sized ritual.

Stiles hadn't considered that even this might be dangerous.

/Thinking About You by Big Scary

He could smell the blood before he saw him.

Not a lot of it, and not fresh, but unmistakeably Isaac. Scott flung his bike on its side in his rush to get to him, a little quivering heap on the floor in the barely used parking lot.

He was way too pale, lips edged with blue. He didn't react when Scott rolled him over, glazed eyes staring up at the sky.

"Isaac," Scott shouted, lightly hitting his cheeks. "Isaac, can you hear me?"

Isaac opened his mouth like he was considering speaking but seemingly decided against it.

Scott put two fingers to his neck, just below his jaw, feeling for a pulse. It was weak. He pulled out his phone, fingers fumbling as he found Mason's name.

"Hello?"

"Mason. You need to come to Morinna's, now, with your car. We have to get Isaac to the hospital," he said urgently, pulling off his jacket to keep Isaac warm.

"Oh shit, what's happened?"

" _Now_ , Mason!" Scott shouted. "Isaac? Isaac? What happened? Where's Morinna?"

Isaac whimpered. Scott scanned his body, eyes zeroing in on his wrist. He snatched it up. The pale skin was streaked with dried blood, reddish brown. Running his thumb over it, he couldn't find a source. He must have healed.

Scott couldn't fathom why Isaac would have a cut on his wrist deep enough to cause this.

"Morinna?" Isaac suddenly said, his voice thin, eyes looking through Scott.

"Where did she go? Did she do this?" Scott demanded, holding Isaac's face still.

"She left me," Isaac whispered, a sob breaking through his chest. "Oh god, she left me."


	16. Chapter 16

/Wildwood by Fleurie

They were walking back towards the road when he found them.

"Lydia!" Stiles spluttered, skidding on the mud and leaves that comprised the forest floor as he tried to slow down abruptly. "Are you okay? Are you hurt? What's happening?"

Lydia and Malia stared at him, slowing to a halt. Malia put her hands out to steady him as he reached them.

"Nothing?" Lydia said, cocking her head. "Everything went exactly as planned. I got a piece, like I said I would."

She held up the little piece of bark she had hacked off the stump, no longer than her thumb, to show him.

Stiles looked them both up and down, clearly not believing them. "But – but, you screamed? Scott heard you scream!"

Malia and Lydia exchanged a knowing look.

"Yeah, right, I guess I forgot that Scott would hear that," Lydia conceded. "Sorry, I didn't realise that would panic you. We're fine, I screamed on purpose. To clear my mind, you know? I had to drown out everything that wasn't supernatural. It helped me find the Nemeton."

Stiles glowered. "I thought you were dying."

Lydia stepped forward to give him a tight hug. He sighed, burying his nose into her hair. The smell of her hair always reminded him that everything was okay. She was here, with him. Not dead.

"I'm alive too," Malia said sardonically, arms folded.

Stiles gave her a sheepish smile. "We can all go get dinner? My treat?" he offered, deftly changing the subject.

Malia rolled her eyes. "I want pizza. I want _two_ pizzas," she announced, walking past the couple and back towards the road.

Lydia giggled, repositioning herself so she was tucked neatly under Stiles' arm.

"Weren't you meant to be getting dinner for your dad?" she asked, falling into step with him as they followed Malia.

"Ah, yeah," Stiles remembered, rubbing the back of his neck. "He's gonna be grumpy. I'm sure he'll understand that you not dying was my priority though."

"It was?" Lydia asked innocently. "That's strange. If it was you, and I was watching something good on Netflix, I'd definitely finish the episode before setting off on a rescue mission."

"Hilarious," Stiles murmured, squeezing her into his chest.

She lost balance, falling right into him, her arms flailing.

Malia whipped around at the scuffling noise just in time to see Stiles' strong arms looping around Lydia, who had gone almost limp.

"Lydia?" Stiles said loudly, turning her to face him. She was still blinking, breathing, conscious.

She put a tentative hand to her throat.

"Something's changed," she said breathlessly. "Morinna."

/Just Tonight by The Pretty Reckless

The tears stopped about 45 minutes outside of Beacon Hills, but she kept sobbing for a good four hours as she drove.

Morinna went through the whole situation in her mind, countless times, wondering what she could have done differently. Never got so close to him, of course. Run as soon as they had figured out something was odd about her. Ended things as soon as she became a vampire. It was clear that hurting people and being a vampire came hand in hand.

She idly wondered if she should have told them that she was a vampire early on. She had been so certain that they would kill her, but now she wasn't so sure. They had given her such an easy way out with the succubus thing. It had been easier to just go along with it, agree to the label. Far easier than confessing, "hey, I drink human blood to survive."

It wasn't like the movies, either. She couldn't just drink animal blood. "Vegetarian" vampires went insane and drained people.

Not that she'd done much better.

For the third time in her life, Morinna was lost. There was absolutely nothing left in the world to tie her anywhere. All her family were dead. All her friends hated her. Nobody on the earth would care if she was dead or alive.

She realised that the only reason she was still alive was because she was too cowardly to kill herself. She coughed, choking back bitter tears. She could see that _thing_ , that creature that had turned her, lurking in the back of her mind, laughing.

Morinna had to kill it.

It was the only way any of this would be worth it; if it could never do this again. It had made a murderer out of her, taken away every last thing she held dear. She had been transformed into something abhorrent, something that she detested.

The thought itself made her feel like she had been struck in the stomach with a shard of ice. When she had gotten on the plane she had looked out at the grey skies of England and acknowledged that she could never go back. She knew that Leo would be there, waiting for her.

Would he keep her again? Would he use her, whisper pretty words and then press her face into the pillow as he fucked her, hard, and then walk out without looking back at her? Or would he do what she knew he was planning eventually, bury his claws deep into her chest, stop her heart from beating?

When she was done, when it was dead, would she let him?

She had heard them talking outside her room before, about how there was something bad inside of her. Something irredeemable. How she fed on suffering and pain. They had agreed that it was for the best if she died. That they should kill her before the moon was in the sky.

Leo had objected to that. It was how she knew he loved her.

Up ahead, a sign advertised a motel at the next exit. Morinna decided on a course of action; she would stay a few days, figure out where she was going to go and how. Then, then she would fix things.

/Flesh & Bones by The Sweeplings

It never got easier.

Melissa would support Scott in anything he did. That was the nature of motherhood, and she couldn't be prouder to have raised such a conscientious, responsible, _giving_ boy. He had saved everyone in the town several times over, he and his pack of kids with the weight of the world on their shoulders.

But, god, her heart couldn't take much more of it.

Every shift she was panicked. Every time they rushed somebody into the ER on a gurney she felt that flutter in her chest, that feeling of foreboding that it would be him or Isaac or Stiles or one of the other kids she had grown to love like her own. She had seen too much suffering over the past few years. Way too much suffering.

When she was paged down to urgent care she almost threw up.

It was exactly like before, the same message, the same grim looks people gave her as she walked past. Last time it had been fake; last time she had collapsed on the floor and screamed and screamed and then she had wiped her eyes and said "I still hate this plan," and Scott had been okay, it had all been fine, he had called her beforehand to run through everything.

Nobody had called her today.

She saw the dark curls and the pale skin, the skin so pale it couldn't have any blood in it, and she screamed, and Dr Price caught her before she hit the floor, and she cried, and she wailed "I just got him back, oh god, I just got him back."

And the Scott stood up from the chair on the other side of the bed, and she saw that he had been crying, and he wrapped his arms around her and said "He's going to be okay, mom, he's going to be okay."

She cried harder, then, because suddenly it all seemed like too much.

But she had to be strong for Isaac because two years ago she had taken in a broken little boy and promised to be everything he needed in the world. She had watched him rebuild, slowly, and start smiling without having to think about it, and now she was going to help him rebuild again.

Melissa sat with him while they pumped him through with 7 pints of blood and told her that he should have been dead. She watched the colour return to his lips like a rose blooming, watched as he woke up and cried himself back to sleep, watched as the pale faces of Lydia and Stiles peeked through the door at him.

She swore she'd never feel helpless like that again.


	17. Chapter 17

Hey everyone! Sorry for the late upload, I just started a new job and things have been _crazy_. This is a bit of a filler before things really pick up very suddenly!

xo Persephone

Eyelids by Pvris

"Should I call Lydia?" Jackson asked quietly, looking up from the laundry he was folding.

The room was hushed, save for the hum of Ethan's laptop and the occasional tap as he scrolled.

Ethan didn't look up, the page he was looking at reflected in his glasses. Jackson hated those glasses, hated the very notion of wearing glasses unnecessarily, but he had to admit that they suited him.

"If you have to ask permission to do something, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," Ethan said cagily, eyes narrowing at the screen. "Nobody's gonna bitch if we get a red eye flight, right?"

"I think they're pretty used to red eyes."

"Touché."

"And I'm not _asking permission_. I'm asking if I should call her and let her know we're coming. So she can tell Scott."

"Why not just call Scott?"

"I don't have his number," Jackson pointed out, walking towards the closet.

" _I_ have his number," Ethan reminded him.

"Jesus, Ethan, why don't you call, then?" Jackson snapped, pulling a shirt off a hanger a little too roughly. "Why is everything such an ordeal with you?"

"What, so you can have a tantrum every time Danny so much as sends me a _Candy Crush_ request, but I'm not allowed to suggest you call Scott instead of going through Lydia?" Ethan countered, still not looking at him. "We're leaving in four hours."

"I don't understand how you can possibly be mad at me for suggesting we call ahead."

"I'm not mad at you, Jackson," Ethan said, exasperated, shutting his laptop. "I have no problem with you calling Lydia. You can text her all day if you want. I have a problem with you thinking I _would_ have a problem with it and doing it anyway!"

"But I just asked permission!"

Ethan rolled onto his back, glaring at the ceiling. "Jackson. If you want to call Lydia, that is okay. But _you_ get mad at me for mentioning Danny, let alone talking to him. You obviously think that's overstepping some kind of boundary – which, by the way, sounds like some kind of stupid, straight person thing. So why is it not, in your eyes, overstepping the same boundary for you to unnecessarily call Lydia?"

Jackson narrowed his eyes at him from the closet, clutching a blue sweater. "Why are things so complicated with you?"

Ethan sat up, stretching out his shoulders. "Forget it. No, don't call ahead. The minute Scott finds out there's a vampire in Beacon Hills, he'll round up his pack and go search for her. And we all know that Leo and Beaumont are still arguing about who gets to do the honours."

He watched Jackson add another stack of clothes to the carry-on without answering. Ethan rolled his eyes and stood, darting forward to press a kiss on his cheek. "I'm making lunch," he announced.

Jackson sighed and caught him by the arm as he turned to leave, pulling him back for a proper kiss. This was what they did, now. They left arguments unfinished and pretended that they hadn't happened. It probably wasn't healthy, but things were definitely a lot calmer.

Ethan could never be mad at him, not since Morinna. Jackson had been doing so well with learning to manage his anger since he had moved away from Beacon Hills. Falling into a proper pack structure had really helped him.

Until Leo had brought back Morinna, and she had broken everything Jackson had worked for, taken scissors to all the strings holding him to the ground.

She was more dangerous than anybody could have anticipated.

Touch by Daughter

Isaac wasn't really talking much.

He had refused to tell them what had happened to him, opting instead to stare at the wall or the ceiling or anything that couldn't stare back at him, chewing on his lip until it swelled. Not that it mattered, because the pure absence of anybody else's scent in her apartment had led them to the conclusion that it had been Morinna.

When they had asked him, he had blanched and said, "it wasn't like that," before rolling over to face the wall and not say anything else at all.

His heart had faltered a bit.

Scott knew that it was exactly like that.

In a perverse sort of way, Lydia and Stiles had – once ascertaining that Isaac was okay – been the only people to be in any way pleased at how events had unfolded. They felt vindicated in their original assertions that Morinna was bad news, and Lydia in particular took great pleasure in being proved right. Not only this, but they had been given some great material for the murder board and immediately retreated to Stiles' bedroom map out the discovery.

Liam and Mason were extremely disappointed that their new friendship had been such a massive lie, and Malia felt ashamed to have experienced a sort of kinship with Morinna. She had thought it was because they were both a little screwed up and trying to get over it, but clearly Morinna had been totally overcome by the darkness that Malia was trying to overtake.

And Scott… Scott felt an overwhelming guilt. He felt guilty every time one of his pack was hurt in the slightest, knowing that it was his responsibility to keep them all safe. He felt even worse knowing that he had hidden things from them, failed to mention that other packs had tried to kill Morinna in the interests of giving her a fair chance. He couldn't quite comprehend why he had done it – perhaps she had even _compelled_ him. There had been warning sign after warning sign – evasiveness, her loss of control in the club, her tendency to pull out the mind control with very little need or warning. Nobody should take removing somebody's agency like that as lightly as she did.

But he had ignored everything wrong about the situation, and now Isaac was mostly drained of blood.

It seemed like that was the least of what she had done to him, as well. Isaac's chemo signals were insane; he seemed to be experiencing dozens of emotions at once. Intense fear; an empty, aching, cavernous sadness; disappointment mixed with anger; and strange, almost painful longing; a heady, floating sensation; guilt and confusion… even a tiny amount of bitter happiness. The sort of happiness that Scott felt when he thought about Allison. A happiness as beautiful and awful and dangerous as a flame to gasoline.

Lydia and Stiles showed back up at the hospital two hours after they had left, clutching paper shopping bags and a huge piece of construction paper. Isaac didn't even look up as they came in, not moving when Lydia patted his leg in a half-assed attempt at comfort.

"We have a hypothesis," she announced proudly, turning to Scott.

"And we couldn't bring the whole murder board, so we condensed it," Stiles added, holding up the paper. He walked over to the cabinet and propped it up on top.

Scott could see a huge spiderlike diagram, Morinna's name in the middle (and a crude stick-figure drawing of her) and a mess of lines connecting each piece of information.

"I think this is the first time I've seen more green and yellow on your murder board than red," he commented.

"Hilarious," muttered Stiles. "Maybe if Isaac was a little more forthcoming with information we'd have even less red."

"Go fuck yourself," Isaac said darkly, still facing the white wall.

Stiles decided to ignore that.

"So, you know what she is?" Scott asked.

"Vampire, obviously," Lydia said, smiling triumphantly. "That much was obvious from the massive blood loss. And the missing blood bags make sense now."

"Yeah, but is she like… half vampire, half succubus? What's up with the emotion drinking?"

"Like I said, this is all hypothetical," Lydia reminded him. "This is going to sound unnecessarily complicated. So first of all, is she a succubus? Maybe."

" _Maybe_?"

"Stop interrupting, Scott," Stiles chastised, still staring at Lydia like she was the night sky.

"There's a school of thought that says she _is_ a succubus. It depends how you define succubus. If we take a succubus to mean a supernatural entity that feeds off of emotions, specifically lust, and seduces people then yeah, you could consider her a succubus. If it looks like a succubus and walks like a succubus, then it's a succubus and all that."

"Succubus isn't a word anymore."

" _Scott_!"

"Okay! Okay, so she's a succubus?"

Lydia scrunched up her face. "No, not exactly. I mean, by nature of her behaviour she could be considered a succubus – what with the emotion drinking, which was almost certainly lust given you were in Jungle, and the mind control that Morinna herself described as _seduction_. But the wider definition of a succubus and an actual succubus are different things. There is a creature called a succubus that she doesn't fit with."

"So she's _not_ a succubus?"

"None of Deaton's books would call her a succubus, but a human might consider her a succubus. Table the succubus talk for a while. So, we were confused about how the emotion thing fit in too – I've never heard of vampires doing _that_ before. But then I realised we were hanging on to the really basic understanding of vampires as pale things that suck blood, and not looking at it on a very fundamental level. Why do vampires drink blood?"

"To stay alive?"

"To consume the life force of another being," Stiles supplied. "The cells of the body die when they're isolated from the blood, right? If you cut off circulation to the leg, the whole leg dies. Because the whole purpose of blood is as a delivery system for energy – glucose. The cells need the blood in order to generate energy, in order to move, in order to exist. Blood is what keeps every cell in the body alive."

"Because the mitochondria _is_ the powerhouse of the cell!" Scott added proudly.

Lydia and Stiles gave him a dead look, Isaac even rolling over slightly to stare at him incredulously.

"Yes, Scott, the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell," Lydia agreed, sounding tired. "I'm so glad your Biology degree is going well. Anyway, what if blood is just one way of harvesting somebody's life force? I'd say emotions would be a pretty organic source of life, right, if you can find a way to collect them."

"So the emotion and the blood drinking are just the same thing?" Scott clarified.

"Exactly!" Stiles said. "Morinna feeds on blood or emotions, yeah, but she's really absorbing the energy within them. None of Deaton's books say a lot on vampires beyond the usual drinks blood, basically dead thing, but one of them made an abstract mention of something called an energy vampire."

"Hold on, we have a quote… 'the common vampire is described as "inhuman looking, with red eyes, extremely pale skin, two sets of fangs and claw-like nails". Due to its unsettling appearance, it is rare for a common vampire to live amongst human society – unlike its sister group, the energy vampire – and they tend to live in isolated spaces and travel to feed at night.' We think Morinna is one of the sister group," Lydia explained, reading from the board.

"Sister group… so she shares an ancestor with the common vampire?"

"Yes, Scott, exactly. Well, her wider species does. But that's all we found, so we had to make a few guesses to fill the gaps. Which, hopefully, Isaac can help us with."

"Ha," Isaac spat, turning back over. Scott heard his heart beat faster – and everyone else did too, as the machine next to him began to beep more hurriedly. He ripped the clip off his finger.

Lydia pursed her lips and picked it up, holding her hand out for Isaac's. "You've got about ten seconds before they come in with a crash team because they think you've flatlined," she said gently, and Isaac begrudgingly let her hook him back up.

"As Lydia was saying, we made some guesses. We think that energy vampires can feed on emotions as well as blood, and we think that the compulsion thing is unique to them. It was never mentioned in relation to the common vampire. Lydia thinks that compulsion works to like stop people fighting being bitten. We also think there's a process _beyond_ being bitten that turns people – like, it's been quite a while since Isaac was bitten and he's not changing," said Stiles. "…We think. Hey, Isaac, not feeling particularly vampiric, are you, buddy?"

Isaac flipped him off.

"Charming. Well, Deaton is calling around his contact to try and find more, particularly how to stop her, but we picked up some supplies in the meantime."

"Supplies?" Scott asked, sounding unconvinced.

Stiles brandished the paper bag. "Garlic. Holly and roses apparently work, we also got a bible."

"That's ridiculous," Scott pointed out.

"Well, it's better than nothing. Not very many places stock wooden stakes, so we got some wooden tent pegs and we figure we can sharpen them. Stake through the heart, and all that. Pretty much anything will die if you stake it through the heart."

The heart monitor was beeping faster and faster. Isaac heaved himself to a seated position with one arm and stared at Stiles, horrified.

"You're not going to _kill_ her!"

"We're not going to kill an out of control demon creature that drains the life from human beings for a cute snack?" Lydia adjusted, eyebrow raised. "Isaac, if we ever see her again she's going to kill _us_. She _tried_ to kill you."

"No, she didn't," he snapped. "It's not her fault. She had to feed. She hadn't been feeding properly because _we_ were watching her!"

"She fed at the club, Isaac. She couldn't even last two days before she attacked someone," Scott pointed out sadly.

"Oh, so we're just going to murder her. The same way we murder out of control werewolves after their first shift. Oh wait, we don't do that, because it's _not their fault_!"

Scott looked conflicted. "He's right," he admitted to Stiles and Lydia. "She only got turned a year or so ago."

"I don't think we can take anything Isaac says at face value, seeing as he's defending the monster that almost killed him. Not to mention the fact that he's most likely still affected by her mind control bullshit," Lydia said bluntly.

"Well, if I'm so fucking useless, why don't you get out?" Isaac said coldly.

Lydia stared him down, lips pursed. Then she shrugged. "We could all do with a good night's sleep," she said. "We'll discuss tracking her down tomorrow."

"Like fuck we will," Isaac said, rolling over to glare at the wall once more.

Scott sighed. "Thanks for your investigative work, guys," he said, standing up to hug his friends goodbye.


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N – Hey everyone! Thanks for your patience with this. I've been a little busy turning 20 and working for my degree. I can't wait until Easter when I have more time to write like I could over Christmas! Hope you all enjoy.**

 **Persephone xo**

Unsteady by X Ambassadors

She looked weirdly like Allison.

Lydia had started training with Parrish nearly two years ago, and when she had moved to MIT she had taken up kickboxing classes to keep up her technique. _There's nothing worse than needing to be saved_ , she had said simply. The muscle under her soft skin had hardened into tight bands, power underpinning the grace she always carried herself with. Stiles was well aware that she could kick his ass if she wanted to.

But there was something different about her now, something tough and determined and _really_ fucking sexy as he watched her packing stakes and knives and a crossbow into a black leather weekend bag. The sun had set as they worked, plunging the room into shadow. Her coppery hair kept falling into her eyes, and she would tuck it back behind her ear neatly, sucking her lower lip as she appraised her work.

Lydia didn't look up as Stiles wandered around the table to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her stomach and resting his head on her shoulder. She was holding one of the stakes that he had spent the last hour whittling into a sharp point with a kitchen knife, running her fingers over it, turning it over and over in her hands.

"Problem?" Stiles asked, voice husky.

"No," Lydia said, voice barely above a whisper. "You took shop class, didn't you?"

"Straight As," he replied, pulling her hips against him.

With shaky hands, Lydia put the stake down slowly.

"Oh yeah?" she breathed, gripping the edge of the table. "You're good with your hands, aren't you?"

She felt him smirking, lips in the crook of her neck.

"I don't know," Stiles said evenly, one hand trailing down, low, over her stomach and her hip, onto her thigh. "Am I?

Suddenly his hand was pushing the fabric of her skirt out the way, his long fingers finding their place between her thighs to brush over the thin lace material of her underwear. Lydia jerked, her breath catching in her throat as he began to stroke torturously slowly.

Lydia felt herself relaxing back into him, her head lolling against his shoulder. His lips were at her throat, sucking at the thin skin where her neck met her shoulder, teeth grazing over it. He deftly pushed her panties to one side and she gasped as everything narrowed down to his fingers on her clit, her shallow breathing, his mouth wet on her skin.

She felt fluttering cold in her toes and her fingers, legs almost giving way underneath her. Stiles' strong arm hugged her against his body, holding her up on her weak legs, murmuring "I got you, I got you," into her hair as she came hard and fast, crying out into the dark room.

They stood for a moment, breathing heavily, as Lydia found her feet and her grip on the table and managed to stand by herself, giddy. She turned around, slowly, leaning against the surface of the table and looking up at her boyfriend. His eyes were heavy, gazing at her for a moment before kissing her deeply, hands on her waist.

Lydia pulled Stiles closer by the waistband of his jeans, watching his mouth quirk as he realised her intention. He ran his thumbs carefully over her breasts while she unbuckled his belt, pale fingers deftly undoing the button and unzipping his jeans.

There was a knock at the door.

Flames by Tedy

"You're fucking kidding me," Jackson intoned, face deadpan. "It's too easy. It's way too easy."

"I mean, it's her, right? It has to be her," said Ethan, looking to Beaumont for confirmation.

Beaumont raised an eyebrow at his companion; slightly shorter than he was, but still taller than average and stocky, with short light brown hair and a heavy brow. Leo took a long drag on his cigarette, clicking his jaw before answering.

"It smells like her," he said dispassionately.

"Ten years since we saw another vampire," said Beaumont. "If it's a different one, it's a pretty damn big coincidence."

Ethan shrugged. "Quickest route from Beacon Hills to the airport, I guess," he said. "So this is her car?"

They were standing around a blue station wagon in the parking lot of a shitty motel, an unremarkable vehicle. One that they wouldn't have picked out if they couldn't smell supernatural creatures from a mile away.

"Seems like it," Beaumont said. "She must be staying here. Looks like you'll be reunited sooner than you thought."

Leo sneered at his Alpha, then turned to Jackson and Ethan. "Go get us some rooms. We might be a while."

"A while?" Jackson asked, grimacing. "Just kill her and be done with it. You know what happened last time you messed around with her."

Suddenly Leo was very close to him. "You're lucky I remember what she did to you, or you'd be bleeding now, lizard," he said in a sharp, low voice.

Jackson was distinctly aware of the claws digging into his torso.

"I said if you called me lizard _one more fucking time_ –" he heard himself saying before he could stop himself, and then he was hitting the side of the car and a shrill alarm was wailing like a banshee's song.

"You bleeding idiots," Beaumont cursed, grabbing Jackson by the collar of his very expensive shirt and hauling him across the carpark in seconds. "Way to stay under the radar. What is this, amateur hour?"

Leo laughed darkly as he and Ethan followed, letting their Alpha lead them into the small office as Morinna's car continued to wail. Beaumont released Jackson, who straightened up and glared at him before going begrudgingly to the check in desk where a bored teenager was chewing gum and barely paying attention to them. He resisted the urge to throw a punch when Leo followed him.

"Those windows," Leo said, leaning forward onto the counter to give the girl a salacious look. "Tinted?"

She looked uneasily between him and the glass, nodding shortly. "Yes," she said, leaning in. "Are you British?"

Leo didn't bother responding, satisfied with the answer, and went to stand by the glass facing the car.

As he had predicted, Morinna was walking down the stone steps from one of the motel rooms. She was dressed entirely in black and white, a huge black sun hat on her head and big sunglasses obscuring most of her face. She held her keys clenched in her fist.

They watched as she circled her car cautiously, unlocking it to turn off the alarm, and then straightened up and turned slowly on her heel. For a moment she seemed to look right at them, but then her eyes slid past and continued around the parking lot.

Seeming satisfied, she took a step back towards her room – and then she froze, body going as stiff as a board. Pointedly, she sniffed the air. Then one of her hands clutched at her chest, and she sped back up the stone stairs and out of sight.

Beaumont raised an eyebrow at Leo, who shrugged.

"She's not going to run," he said.

"So you say."

Leo smiled. "I know Morinna. She's not going to run."

The Curse by Agnes Obel

"You're going to need a really good excuse for being here," Stiles said in a dark voice.

Lydia appeared under his arm, flushed and flustered. "Isaac? What the hell?" she said, her voice a little too high. She immediately pulled him through the doorway and into the living room, pushing him towards the couch. "I know for a fact they didn't discharge you."

Isaac wrinkled his nose suddenly. "I'm interrupting," he said.

"Yeah, no shit, buddy," Stiles said, shutting the door and deadbolting it. "Come on, tell us then. What's going on?"

Isaac's cheek twitched. "I need you to promise me something."

"Lie down," Lydia ordered him, gathering up the cushions from the other couch. "Now, Isaac," she added when she saw he wasn't moving.

He rolled his eyes and shifted positions, resting his head on the arm of the sofa. Lydia lifted his legs up deftly, shoving cushions underneath so they were elevated, and then disappeared into the kitchen.

"Promise you something?" Stiles prompted.

"Promise you won't hurt her."

"Isaac, we've been over this," sighed Stiles. "We do what we have to do. I can't promise that. Not when she's this dangerous."

"But she's not dangerous!" Isaac insisted, his voice cracking. He looked up at Stiles with pleading eyes, eyes too big and dark in his milky white face.

"Sure, buddy," Stiles said sadly. "You came here just to ask that?"

Isaac shook his head, clenching his jaw.

"So what did you want to ask?"

Lydia breezed back through the doorway with a glass of orange juice. "Drink up," she said primly, placing it on the coffee table in front of Isaac and pulling the heavy wool blanket from the back of the seat on top of him. "Stiles, can you go warm up the jeep?"

"Don't," Isaac said, narrowing his eyes as the juice.

"Isaac, you're going back to the hospital," Lydia said firmly. "You're recovering from major blood loss. I don't even want to know how you got here. Drink your orange juice."

"I'm not going back," he protested. "Stiles won't promise."

Stiles guffawed. "Come on, what did you really want?"

"I want you to promise not to hurt her!"

Lydia pursed her lips. "We won't hurt her unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Define necessary," Isaac demanded, frowning at her.

"We won't hurt her unless it will stop a member of the pack or another innocent person being hurt."

"Unless you have absolute _proof_ that she would hurt somebody. You can't assume that she's going to hurt someone just because of who she is as a person," Isaac negotiated.

Lydia gave him a wan smile. "Sure, Isaac, why not?"

"Lydia!" Stiles protested.

"Hush. Now, Stiles is right. You could have asked us this in the morning. What do you really want?"

Isaac looked conflicted for a moment, and then he said "I need you to help me find her. Tonight."

Lydia and Stiles exchanged a look.

"No," they said simultaneously.

"Hear me out," Isaac said. "I've had blood transfusions. There's not much more the hospital can do for me. Now I have enough blood I've been healing quickly. I'll probably be fine in a couple hours. But that's not the point; the point is that Morinna, for all her flaws, is a human being."

"Flaws? She tried to _kill_ you," Stiles said in disbelief. "Lydia, are you hearing this?"

" _Accidentally_ ," Isaac reminded him. "And we've all made mistakes. The point is that Morinna is, right now, in danger. I'm sure of it."

"You're sure of it? How can you be sure of it? Has she contacted you?" Stiles questioned.

"Call it intuition," Isaac said. "I know she's in trouble. And we need to go and find her, now."

"This is insane," Lydia said. "You know this is insane, right? Isaac, you're not in your right mind. There's no way you could know that she was in trouble."

Isaac narrowed his eyes. "I would have thought that you of all people would be a little more understanding about this."

Lydia huffed. "I'm a banshee. You're a wolf. It's different."

"I'm a wolf who has experienced something we don't yet understand. And that _thing_ is telling me that Morinna needs saving. We don't have time to argue about this."

Lydia sat back on her heels. "Let's say, hypothetically, I believe you. How would we even find her? How do we know we can even help her? And why, as I can only assume from the fact that he's not here, are you hiding it from Scott?"

Isaac looked sheepish. "See, I was just thinking that you've been _really_ good at finding things before… and Scott wouldn't have even let me leave the hospital. I had to sneak out while he went to get food."

"I see," Lydia said, unamused. "So you want me to disobey my alpha, one of my best friends, so you can continue to used me as a supernatural GPS system and save a psychotic vampire who tried to kill you?"

Isaac gave her what he hoped was a convincing smile.

"Stiles," Lydia said. "Warm up the jeep."


	19. Chapter 19

Hey everyone! I really love these next scenes. I really love them. I love how Isaac and Stiles interact, and I love banshee!Lydia and I'm just super pleased with how they turned out.

 **We're definitely in the last section of this fic, which means that things will be heating up real soon!**

 **Thanks to everyone who has read this far!**

 **Persephone xo**

Mustang Kids by Zella Day

"So, where am I going, Lyds?" Asked Stiles, the dashboard lighting his face up in a hopeful glow.

Lydia looked blankly at him. "How the hell should I know?"

They turned to look at Isaac.

"Hey, I came to you because I didn't know. Can't you do some kind of crazy banshee thing?"

Lydia rolled her eyes. "Why does everybody think I can just turn it on? I know as much as you do right now. You gotta give me something to work with."

Stiles pursed his lips, fingers tapping on the steering wheel. "We could just drive around and you can tell me if it feels right or wrong?"

"Yeah, focus on Morinna. Maybe that will help," Isaac piped in.

Lydia sighed, leaning back in her seat and closing her eyes. "It's not gonna work, you know."

"You literally just agreed to be a supernatural GPS, and now you won't even try it?"

"I thought you had more of a plan," Lydia snapped. "You know, like when I had a key to go off? Or a code? Or at least a pen, and I could try automatic writing?"

"Can you at least try this? She didn't exactly leave a forwarding address."

Lydia settled back into her seat, folding her arms. "Just drive, Stiles," she said. "I'll tell you if I feel anything."

"You're the boss," Stiles said, splaying his fingers across her knee.

They pulled out of the driveway and turn left down the street, admiring the quiet of the night and the dark windows in all of the houses. Stiles decided to head towards the main intersection, where it was more likely that Lydia would have a preference for direction.

To his surprise, Lydia mumbled "left here," before they even got there. He obliged, making a sharp turn as Isaac stared, enthralled, out of the window.

"Left again."

Isaac stiffened, sitting up straight in his seat "are you sure?" He asked.

"Why?" Lydia's eyes flickered open. She peered through the windscreen, realisation crossing her face, as Morinna's apartment building loomed up ahead. "Oh."

Stiles grimaced, pulling into the car park. "You think she's here?"

"No," both Lydia and Isaac said at the same time.

"You wanna try again?"

Lydia sucked on her bottom lip. "No, I don't think so. I think I was just thinking about Morinna, and this was the first place that came to mind. Still, we're here now. Might as well look around."

Stiles shrugged, undoing his seatbelt. The temperature always dropped pretty low at night, and Lydia was already shivering. He tucked her under his arm.

Isaac wrinkled his nose. "Smells like my blood," he observed. "Just a little bit."

"Great," Stiles muttered, pulling Lydia towards the entrance. "Do you have a key or something?"

Isaac scratched the back of his head. "I think it's in the apartment," he admitted. "Wasn't really thinking before I left."

"So what do we do about the front door?"

"The intercom has only worked, like, one of the times we've been here," Lydia pointed out, narrowing her eyes at it as they rounded the corner. "So maybe it'll just open?"

They reached the door and Stiles shook the handle. "No dice."

Isaac looked about himself for a second, and then, as if it was no effort at all, pulled the door open. Wood splintered where the lock was.

"Somebody's got their strength back," Stiles glowered, pushing Lydia inside ahead of him.

Isaac shrugged. "Like I said, once I had enough blood to heal properly I was fine in minutes."

When they got to Morinna's door Isaac pushed it open; he didn't remember much about the previous couple of days, but he was pretty sure that he hadn't had the foresight to shut and lock the door behind him.

Stiles flicked the light switch as they stepped in, pausing to look around. The apartment looked much the same as before; Morinna had left all the furniture, and she didn't seem to have much in the way of personal affects to begin with.

"Walk me through what happened?" Lydia asked, standing with her hands on her hips.

Isaac frowned, looking around. Stiles knew immediately he would hold back, whatever he told them.

"Morinna was in her room, and I was on the other side of the door," he began. Lydia cocked an eyebrow. "What?"

"Nothing," she said lightly. "Carry on."

"We were talking. Then she opened the door and I… we hugged. And I could suddenly smell blood."

"Your blood?"

"No, it was her."

"I hear that's pretty normal for wo-"

"Shut up, Stiles," Lydia said, slapping him on the arm. "Why was she bleeding?"

"I looked and – her teeth. She had fangs. I don't think they were there before, I hadn't noticed them. She'd bitten her own lip."

"And then?" Lydia prompted.

"I didn't understand, not for a moment. I didn't connect the fangs and the blood. I asked her what had happened, and I tried to touch the blood. I couldn't figure out where it had come from. She was, like, scratching at her neck, and she told me to leave."

"And you didn't leave?" Stiles asked sceptically. "A vampire, with fangs, a _thirsty_ vampire told you to leave and you didn't go?"

Isaac shot him a dirty look. "It all happened in like, ten seconds, asshole. Anyway, then she grabbed my wrist. She couldn't control herself. And she bit me."

"And the rest is history," Lydia murmured. "Can I try something?"

Isaac nodded, flourishing to the rest of the apartment.

"You passed out – where?"

He crossed to the line where the hardwood floor turned to kitchen tile, indicating with his toe. "About here, I think."

"Can you lie down?"

Both Isaac and Stiles gave her a funny look, but Isaac obliged, getting down on the floor and lying on his back. He adjusted his position slightly and turned to look at her for further instruction.

"Just stay still," she said, kneeling next to him. She bent down, pressing her ear to his chest.

"What are you doing?" Stiles asked, looking amused.

"Listening," Lydia said. "To his heartbeat. It all comes back to heartbeats, doesn't it?"

Stiles couldn't argue with that. He watched them, hunched over in a strange tableau. After a few minutes, Lydia straightened up, frowning.

"What did you hear?" Isaac asked hopefully, propping himself up on his elbows.

"Nothing."

"Great," Stiles muttered. "Time to give up?"

"No," Lydia said sweetly, standing up. She turned on her heel, looking around the apartment. "I'm going to check her bedroom."

Stiles and Isaac followed.

The bed was stripped and the walls were bare. Lydia flipped the pillows over to check, but there was nothing there. The wardrobe was equally fruitless; just a couple of empty hangers remaining. They tried the bathroom next; an abandoned bottle of argan oil shampoo was in the shower, but other than that the counters and cabinet were bare.

She hadn't had a lot to begin with, but it seemed that Morinna had managed to completely clear the apartment of any clue to her personality.

They returned to the living area disappointed. Lydia scowled at the room. "There's something here, I know it," she whispered.

"Banshee know it?" Stiles asked.

She chewed her lip. "No," she admitted. "But there's something here. There _has_ to be."

Suddenly she turned and strode into the kitchenette, pulling the nearest cupboard open. She found packages of pasta and rice and a little Tupperware full of seasoning shakers, but they didn't really say a lot. In the next cupboard were rows of mugs and packets of coffee held closed with wooden pegs.

"Aha!" Lydia exclaimed, seizing up a familiar blue-white striped mug triumphantly and holding it up.

"Aha?" Stiles repeated, sounding unconvinced.

"She always had coffee," Lydia pointed out. "She liked coffee more than a grad student."

"Right, and she left a cell phone number, full legal name and a note explaining everything in the mug?"

Lydia rolled her eyes, transferring the mug from palm-to-palm thoughtfully. Without any warning she dropped it, not even flinching as it shattered into hundreds of pieces around her. Stiles, on the other hand, shrieked and grabbed onto Isaac.

"What was that?" he demanded.

Lydia shushed him, stepping on the broken china to reach for another cup. It made a satisfying crunching noise.

She dropped it again, a look of pure concentration on her face.

"Corazón," she said suddenly, looking up at them.

"Corazón?" Isaac repeated.

"That's what I heard. Both times. _Corazón_."

"You mean, like, _heart_ in Spanish?" Stiles asked, eyebrow raised. "Can the voices be more specific?"

Lydia shrugged.

"Why _Spanish_?" Isaac asked incredulously. "I mean heart, yeah, could be relevant. They pump blood and all that. But in Spanish? Is she Spanish? Did she tell you she was Spanish?"

"She's from London, dumbass," Stiles sighed, flopping onto the low couch.

"I don't see why it would be in Spanish unless it had to be," Lydia said, pushing shattered china out of the way with her foot. "Let me just check."

Before anybody could protest, she had another mug. Lydia crouched down, lifting the cup above her head and dropping it.

Stiles fell off the couch.

"Definitely corazón," she said, determined. She straightened up.

"You're bleeding," Stiles sighed, pulling himself off the floor.

"Am I?" Lydia asked, putting a tentative finger to her cheek where a small piece of china had buried itself. "Oh. So I am."

"Hold still," Stiles ordered, tilting her chin towards the light. Tongue stuck out in concentration, he carefully pulled the pottery out. "You've got to think before you do shit like that."

Lydia brushed him off. "It worked. So. Corazón. What is that? Maybe she's in Mexico."

"Not again," Stiles groaned. "Fuck Mexico. The Calaveras have her. No saving her now."

"Why would she go to Mexico?" Isaac asked, frowning.

"I don't know," Lydia admitted.

"Hold on," Stiles said, pulling his phone out. "What if it's a place? Like, a restaurant or something?"

Lydia rested her head on his arm, watching him type something. She tilted her head at the screen.

"There's a motel. 3 hours away. Motel Corazón," Stiles announced.

"Oh jeez," Isaac cursed. "Not another fucking motel."

Heart Heart Head by Meg Myers

Why didn't motel rooms come with decent weapons?

A kitchenette, maybe, with some big knives? Or a fireplace with a poker? Even a broom. She could sharpen the handle of a bloom.

Morinna had a toilet plunger.

Even that was just a token weapon. She was well aware that she couldn't fight them; much less run away. They were faster. They were stronger. They had been standing right by her car.

So now she was cowered in the bathroom, holding a toilet plunger, trying to at least put another door between herself and the London pack.

It didn't work. They had a key.

"Morinna?" came the lilting voice.

Beaumont. Morinna cringed.

"Are you in the bathroom, love? Come out. I just want to talk."

She stopped breathing.

"Don't need to be scared. I'm not armed."

"Just clawed," Morinna muttered, shutting her eyes.

"There's that sense of humour I know and love," chuckled Beaumont. "I don't want to fight. Just come out. You can't stay in there forever."

Morinna slid to the floor, back against the door. She pulled her knees under her chin.

"I don't want to kick the door down," warned Beaumont.

She wrapped her arms around her legs.

She heard the soft click of the front door being pushed open.

"Morinna?"

Suddenly it seemed like the whole world was turning on its side.

Morinna felt the door shift as Leo sat against it.

"I missed you, you know," he said quietly. His voice was like honey, gentle and calm and smooth. "Are you going to talk to me?"

"No," she whispered. She didn't realise she was crying until she felt cold on her cheeks.

"That's okay," Leo said. "Are you coming out?"

All of the oxygen left her lungs. The tile was hardwood, the plunger was whiskey, and Leo – Leo was a lanky boy with dark hair and haunted eyes. It was too close. Too much like Isaac.

He couldn't take that too.

Without even considering it, Morinna scrambled away from his voice. She clutched at the shower curtain like a comfort blanket.

Leo pushed open the door, standing over her pityingly.

"There you are," he said, kneeling down in front of her. "I've been worried about you, baby. I didn't know where you were. Nobody to protect you."

She couldn't look at him.

"Please, baby," he said, brushing the hair out of her face with his thumb. "I've been so scared. So scared that you were hurt."

"You want to kill me," she choked out, turning her head away.

"No, no, no I don't," he gushed, pulling her chin back to look at him. "I could never kill you. I was the one protecting you. I just want you to be safe."

Morinna shook her head, breath shaky. "No. No, you're lying."

"I'm not lying. Look at me. Baby, look at me." He wrestled her eyes open with his thumbs, face inches from her own.

Those eyes. Vividly green, like palm leaves in summer. Leo's eyes always made her pause.

"You scared us for a bit. Just a little bit," he said, voice low. "But you've been okay. You've been alright living on your own. You're not a threat. Now we can be together."

Morinna swallowed, blinking back tears. "I can't do it again, Leo. I can't."

"Can't do what, baby?" Leo whispered, holding her head still. "Talk to me. It's all okay. Everything is gonna be alright."

She tried to pull his hands away from her cheeks.

"You can't. You can't lock me up again, Leo. I can't do it."

"I won't do it, baby. It's different now," he reassured her.

"It has to be different. It has to be," she gasped, tears spilling down her cheeks.

"It is. I promise you," Leo said firmly, wiping them away with his thumbs. "Please. Come back to me. I need you."

Morinna closed her eyes again, trying to regulate her breathing. Just two days before she had seen her world open right up. Infinite possibilities. She could have gone anywhere, been anyone.

"Rinna. Please."

And now – now, there was forwards or there was backwards. Now there was Leo and Morinna, and London, and a poky little apartment in Dalston. And she wasn't sure if it was going to be okay, or the same, or different, but she was tired of not being a real person. Nobody understood her like Leo did. With him, she was someone.

She opened her eyes.

Leo smiled, the right side of his mouth quirking. "I knew you'd come back to me," he said, leaning in to capture her lips with his own.

It hurt. In her chest, like a deep ache.

Love. That's what love felt like.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: Wow, so I got the _best_ review from a guest reviewer and it seriously made my day. It motivated me to write this pretty lengthy chapter. Thank you so much if it was you!

 **Persephone xo**

The Tiger's Bride by Lena Fayre

Beaumont nodded at her when she came in. He was lounging on the uncomfortable chair at the little desk in her motel room, a rolled cigarette between his calloused fingers.

"Morinna," he said curtly.

She glared at him and then looked away.

"You were staying _here_?" Leo asked, looking around the meagre accommodation.

The motel room wasn't much – dirty brown carpet, yellowing walls, dark green striped bedding on a double bed and a narrow dark coloured wardrobe and desk.

"Just stopping by," she said, voice measured, flopping down onto her bed.

"And you were flying back to England in… two days?"

Morinna jerked into a seated position. Leo was smirking at her from behind her laptop screen. He'd guessed the password. She supposed he really did know her better than anybody else in the world.

She jumped to her feet, striding across the room to snatch the laptop from him, snapping it shut. Yelling at Leo still felt wrong, awfully wrong, so she rounded on Beaumont.

"Get out of my room, dick head," she spat venomously, trying to look taller than she was.

Beaumont looked bored. "But I'm having the best time in your company," he drawled, taking a drag of his cigarette.

"Why is he even here?" Morinna demanded, turning to give Leo a pleading look.

"Because, _sweetie_ ," Beaumont said, stubbing out on the desk and standing up to loom over her. "Leo is _so_ sure that you're not a monster that he absolutely begged us to let him come and save you from yourself. But I'm not so sure that you're worth it, so watch your pretty little mouth or I'll show you just how expendable you are."

He stroked the side of her face, smiling down at her.

Morinna stood up very straight, trying to look as if she was made of stone. "If you ever touch me again," she said, barely above a whisper. "I will drain you and anybody who tries to stop me."

"Feisty," Beaumont chuckled. "Brave, too. And stupid."

His hand left her cheek, just for a second, and then it collided. Morinna heard a cacophony of noise; a confused crash, and glass cracking, and wood splintering, and a strange discordant ringing. Then she heard a chortle and the door shutting.

Leo sighed. She felt his hand on her shoulder, and suddenly she was on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Her cheek was hot and stinging, colours swimming in front of her eyes in an ocean of red and green and purple.

"I wish you wouldn't antagonise him," Leo chided, pulling her up so she was sitting.

Morinna put a cold hand on her cheek, feeling it throb beneath her fingers in a way that surprised her seeing as she didn't technically have a pulse.

"I wish he wasn't such a prick," she grumbled, blinking her vision back into focus. She zeroed in on the floor. "My laptop!"

Leo rolled his eyes. "Not like you can't afford a new one, princess," he sneered. "If I leave you here, are you going to try and run?"

"Where are you going?"

"Out. Got some stuff to do."

"Wow, as open as ever," Morinna muttered darkly. She turned away from him, cradling her cheek.

"Don't get bitchy, Rinna," he said, a sharp edge just detectable under his honey voice.

Morinna felt the edge of the bed sink as he sat down next to her. "I missed you, you know," he said.

She didn't reply. Leo sighed again, and then his hand was on her chin wrenching her face towards him.

"I'm being nice, Morinna, I really am, but you're making it difficult," he said bluntly, his fingertips pressing into her jawline. His forest green eyes searched her face. "Are you sorry?"

Morinna forced herself to look into his eyes without flinching. "Yes," she said, voice measured.

"Good," Leo whispered, and then he leant forward and kissed her, one hand stroking her hair. He rested his forehead against hers instead of pulling away. "I'll be back later," he said, lips almost touching hers as he spoke. "Ethan and Jackson are going to keep an eye on you."

"What?" Morinna pulled away. "Are you serious?"

Leo patted her on the cheek, her hot skin flaring with pain once again. "Can't have you flying away, Rinna, can we now?"

"You said it was different this time," she snapped, standing up. "And I'm under lock and key again?"

"Think of them as companions," Leo said. "We can argue about this later. If you're not trying to run, then it's not a problem, is it?"

"Why are you doing this?" Morinna demanded, crossing her arms.

"Because I love you," Leo said, kissing her on the forehead protectively. "Don't cause trouble."

He left the room. Morinna glared at the closed door, seething.

Conscious by Broods

"Stiles," Lydia said in a low voice.

He glanced over at her, eyes darting between her and the road. Her hands were gripping the edge of her seat, knuckles white, and she was staring straight ahead, wide eyed.

"Lydia?"

"Stiles, something's wrong," she whispered, not looking at him.

Stiles frowned out into the darkness ahead, trying to see what she was looking at. All he could see was the black tarmac ahead where his headlights were illuminating it, no cars, the desert sprawling out endlessly either side of them, peppered with little mountains and ravines. The lonely yowl of a coyote bit through the night, echoing around the jeep. Isaac woke up with a start.

"What's wrong, Lyds?" Stiles asked, feeling the tight knot of anxiety coiling up in his stomach once again. "I can't see anything. Isaac, can you smell anything? That howl was just a normal animal, right?"

Isaac blinked, sitting up properly. "I can't smell much," he said, sounding a little dazed. "My senses have been dulled since I got bitten. I'm still recovering, I guess. Lydia?"

"You didn't think to tell us this when we went on a rescue mission without backup?"

Lydia swallowed loudly, pursing her lips. "My throat itches."

"Your throat… itches?" Isaac echoed.

"Yes," she said through gritted teeth. "It itches."

"You mean you need to scream?" Stiles clarified, reaching across to put a hand on her knee.

"Not right now. Soon."

"How soon?"

"Oh, gee, I don't know, let me check my calendar!" Lydia snapped, bringing her hands up to cradle her throat.

Isaac made the conscious decision not to argue back. "Then we need to speed up," he said decisively. "We might not have a lot of time."

"Sure, Isaac, I'll just floor it in my sports car. How fast do you think Roscoe actually _goes_?"

"Why do you insist on –"

"Stop bickering!" Lydia snarled. "I'm calling Scott. This is too much."

"Scott is gonna be, like, _really_ mad –"

"I said, call Scott!"

"Okay, okay," Stiles said placatingly. He fished his phone out of his pocket and held it towards Isaac. "Call Scott."

"And tell him what?"

"Tell him where we're going. And tell him we're going to stop, get some food, maybe take a nap so he has time to catch up," Lydia said in a surprisingly even voice.

"We can't stop! We're running out of time."

"We have time," she said forcefully. "Call him."

Emerald by LYRA

"Open the door, Morinna," Ethan said, voice raised.

"Go fuck yourself," she called back. She was lying on her back on the uncomfortable bed, tracing constellations in the stucco ceiling with her eyes.

"People have been giving us weird looks! We can't sit outside forever."

"Maybe you should piss off, then."

"You realise I could just break the door down? And then you'd have to tell Leo why it's broken."

"God, you're so fucking _boring_!" Morinna exclaimed, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and going to pull the door open. It slammed into the dry wall, leaving a little dent.

Ethan was standing in the doorway looking unamused. Behind him she could see Jackson sat on the stairs, eyes focused on his phone.

"And _you're_ unbelievable. We literally go downstairs to get you snacks and you lock us out!"

"Maybe I don't want a babysitter," she said acidly, retreating to her bed and flopping down onto it. "You shouldn't have both left. That's just stupidity."

"As if I'm ever leaving you alone with Jackson again," Ethan scoffed, throwing a package of Oreos at her.

"Jackson's fine. Aren't you, sweetie?"

"You're a real bitch, Morinna," Jackson said, glancing up from his phone to give her a vengeful look.

"So I've heard."

Ethan and Jackson settled against the wall, Ethan resting his head against his boyfriend's shoulder.

"Couples," Morinna scoffed, rolling onto her stomach and ignoring the little stab she felt in her chest.

"Go to sleep if you don't like it."

"I'm never sleeping around werewolves again," Morinna said lightly. "Not when you're all trying to kill me. Your whole pack are psychopaths."

"Except for Leo, right?"

"Including Leo."

"I don't understand you," Ethan said, sounding genuinely interested. "Why are you here? What's your end game, Morinna? You haven't made any serious attempts to escape, so what is keeping you here? And don't tell me it's Leo. I don't know what you two are playing at, but neither of you seem to be enjoying it."

"It is Leo," she said in a quiet voice. "Would you leave Jackson?"

"That's totally different, and you know it."

"Do I?" she said, more to herself than to anyone else.

"You're an idiot if you don't."

"Well, I'm definitely an idiot," Morinna replied, rolling onto her back to stare up at the ceiling. "Tell me something. Who's your alpha?"

"Beaumont, but you already knew that."

"Yes, I did. You've noticed, I'm sure, that Beaumont isn't my biggest fan."

"Possibly because you permanently damaged several members of his pack," Ethan said acidly, looking at Jackson, whose jaw was clenched.

"Then why, Ethan, am I still alive?" Morinna asked, waiting for him to catch up. "It's because of Leo, right? But why is Beaumont just doing what Leo wants? Leo isn't the alpha. De facto second-in-command, maybe, but not the alpha."

Ethan stared at a point on the carpet, thinking.

"It's because nobody says no to Leo, do they?" she supplied. "You must have noticed it. It's almost impossible to say no to him. I don't know if it's just his personality, or something more, but saying no to Leo is one of the hardest things I've ever tried to do. I don't know if Beaumont can do it either. So, who is really leading you? Who's your real alpha, if Leo can object to anything and get his own way?"

"Stop," Jackson cut in.

Morinna was surprised. This was the first time Jackson had spoken around her since she'd left London. She knew he was scared of her – and rightfully so.

"Stop?"

"Stop listening to her," Jackson instructed his boyfriend. "She's trying to get us on her side so she can manipulate us. It's another one of her stupid mind games."

"I don't play mind games," Morinna said hotly, sitting up to glare at him.

"Oh, please. You and Leo are the same person. You don't care who you hurt to get what you want."

"I didn't mean to hurt you!" she objected, standing up.

Both Ethan and Jackson sprang to their feet, squaring up to her.

"Then enlighten me, Morinna, what _did_ you mean to do if not leave my boyfriend with brain damage so you could run away to Beacon Hills and go clubbing?" Ethan asked her, voice hard.

Morinna crossed her arms. "I hadn't fed for days. I was starving. I didn't even know I _could_ feed on emotion, let alone that _that_ is what I was doing. It's entirely not my fault."

"Really? Because it _feels_ like this is your fault."

"And whose fault is it that I was locked up without blood?"

"I was following orders!" Jackson shouted back. Morinna could see a pulse working in his forehead.

"Orders? You think starving someone is _following orders_? Maybe you were brain damaged to begin with!"

She realised as the words tumbled out of her mouth that she had gone too far.

The last thing she saw was a pair of glowing red eyes.

Silhouette by Aquilo

"Of course," Lydia sighed, pale face turned pink in the soft glow of the neon sign. "Of _course_ we'd end up here."

"I'd offer to take us somewhere else," Stiles said quietly, a sense of foreboding bubbling up inside of him. "But there aren't very many options on the side of the highway."

They were gazing up at the bright lights of a diner, lit up red and blue in the darkness, leaning against the side of the jeep.

Isaac frowned at them, suddenly realising the cause of their reluctance. "You met Morinna in a diner, didn't you?"

Lydia nodded, swallowing. "I guess we're only here for an hour or two, huh?" she said, her voice artificially bright. She pushed herself up off the side of the car and began walking towards the entrance.

"I don't like this," Isaac said to Stiles, following her.

Stiles hesitated, watching their retreating forms. Isaac's words had filled him with trepidation – something about the diner made him not want to go in, despite the inviting glow of the lights in the darkness of the desert.

But there was Lydia, pushing open the heavy glass door.

He'd follow her anywhere.

So he pulled open Roscoe's trunk, slung the black duffle bag he and Lydia had packed earlier over his shoulder and walked inside to where Lydia and Isaac were already sat in a booth beside the door.

A woman in a lemon-yellow dress breezed over with a pot of coffee as soon as he sat down, turning over the waiting mugs and pouring into them. "You come from far?" she asked in a rehearsed voice, deftly pulling sticky laminated menus from the stand in the centre of the table and distributing them as she poured coffee without asking if they wanted it.

"No," Lydia said quietly, pulling her mug closer so she could cradle it in her hands, savouring the warmth. "Just a couple of counties over."

"The coffee is free as long as you buy food," she informed them. "On its own, it's two dollars. We're out of steak and if you want to know what pie we've got then you can come and look at the counter."

She breezed off before they could say anything, presumably to give them time to look at the menus.

"I want cheese fries," Lydia said decisively, slamming down the menu, and Stiles immediately put a comforting arm around her because any time Lydia ate deep-fried carbs he knew she was stressed.

She leant into his side, nuzzling into his shoulder like a cat, as they scanned the stained plastic with bleary eyes. Stiles decided on fried chicken and Isaac on mac and cheese along with a chocolate milkshake, Lydia adding some scrambled eggs to his order because she insisted that he needed to eat more iron.

Lydia waited for the waitress to come back and write down their orders before she patted Stiles' arm expectantly. "Bathroom."

He slid out of his seat to let her up. She glanced around the diner for a moment, spotting the toilet sign and walking towards it. She could feel a dull ache in the tendon of her left ankle and blithely wished that she had packed sneakers or something. The pain was nothing she couldn't deal with, and she'd run away from things in wedges before – in fact, these very shoes, her trusty beige booties. Still, if her ankle was hurting her it could add precious seconds to her running time.

The bathroom was slightly cleaner than she had expected for a roadside diner – though, they were the only customers, so she supposed that the waitress didn't have much else to do besides clean up – and slightly shabby, with peeling peach paint on the walls. Lydia retreated to the nearest stall and, when she was done, washed her hands and ran her little finger around the edge of her lips where her deep pink lipstick had bled. Her eyeliner was running slightly too, and her hair was flat – she wished she'd packed more than sneakers. She needed a full overnight bag.

Lydia was just about to turn and leave when something struck her.

There were only two stalls in the entire bathroom, the one she had been in and – and one with a closed door. She couldn't remember if it had been closed when she had come in. There was no out of order sign on the door, and she couldn't hear breathing…

In another life, a life where she didn't have a jagged scar on her waist, Lydia would have walked away.

She didn't really have that choice anymore.

The door opened a couple of inches before it stopped, and Lydia had to steel herself before she forced it any further. When there was a big enough gap, she pressed her head into the empty space.

In the main restaurant, an already-chipped white mug of black coffee shattered into hundreds of fragments as a blood-curdling shriek cut through the still night air.


	21. Chapter 21

A/N: Ah, this chapter was such a bitch to write! I had the first scene beautifully written and then I lost it, and you know how motivation disappears when you have to redo something that you were happy with. Still, the replacement was actually even better so I'm over it. Mostly.

 **I just want to apologise for the emotional hell that this chapter is about to put you through. I'd like to say that I'm about to make it up to you, but the honest truth is that we're at breaking point. Things are gonna be painful for at least a couple more chapters before we can get back to that sweet, sweet fluff that makes the whole thing worth it.**

 **MASSIVE content warnings for this chapter. Things get pretty violent and horrible.**

 **Finally, thank you so much for the responses to this. I honestly smile like an idiot reading your reviews. I'm super happy that you all like Morinna as a character (maybe not as a person) because writing OCs can be so difficult and they're really rarely well received. I think she's interesting in that she has these huge, glaring faults. I dislike her, honestly, which makes her so fun to write.**

 **Persephone xo**

When the Sun Goes Down by Tommee Profitt

He spotted the diner from half a mile way, lit up red-blue in the dark surroundings of the desert. Eyes on the flickering lights, knuckles white against the handle of his motorbike, it took everything in him for Scott not to throw up.

He could already smell the blood. When it was spilled, blood always smelled the same – earthy, metallic, bitter. Human.

There were vehicles parked all around the building, four cop cars and, round the back, an ambulance. A young-looking deputy looked up as he screeched into the parking lot, not even bothering to kick down the stand on his bike when he got off. He cringed a little as the bike hit the ground with a scraping noise, but quickly disregarded it. He had bigger things to worry about.

Without the sound of the engine, Scott could hear his surroundings better. A few feet away was Stiles, trying to stop hyperventilating in the back of a cop car. Isaac was humming to himself in a different one. He could hear a woman crying from inside the diner, and somewhere in the mix of smells was Lydia.

He just wished he could hear her breathing, or pick out her heartbeat amongst the dozen people milling about the police-taped restaurant.

"Sir? This is a crime scene," the deputy was saying, suddenly standing in front of him.

Scott looked around frantically. "Lydia," he cried out. "Where's Lydia?"

"Lydia?" the cop repeated, pulling out a pristine black notebook. "Sir, do you know the victim?"

Scott's heart dropped like a stone.

"The victim? What's wrong with her?"

"Sir, I need to ask you a few questions," he said. "You said she's called Lydia? Lydia what?"

"Martin," Scott said, retreating inside his head. It felt sickeningly familiar, like a distant night with blood on his hands and a pale face with glassy eyes. Guilt felt like a head ache, like a rock in his throat. Like another friend he had let die.

"I'm sorry, sir, Miss…" he looked down to read what he had written. "Miss Lydia Martin was dead on arrival. How did you know her? How did you know she was here?"

All the air seemed to rush past his ears in one upwards motion. He vaguely registered pain in his knees. It sounded like he was underwater, and far away a man was calling _sir, sir_ , and a woman was crying and he could hear somebody smacking on glass and calling his name.

A concerned face loomed above him, and through the fog Scott realised that he was kneeling.

The deputy was pulled away, suddenly, and an older man with a thick moustache was peering down at him.

"What on _earth,_ Barrett?" the man demanded.

"He knows the victim," the deputy, Barrett, said, sounding excited. "She's called Lydia. Lydia Martin."

"Lydia Martin?" the man repeated incredulously, voice rising. "Christ, Barrett, that's the girl in the ambulance! She's not _dead_!"

Like a wave breaking over his head, all of the sound rushed back to him. He felt cold and warm all at once, from his toes to his fingers, as his breath was suddenly returned to him.

Scott had never been so relieved in his life.

"I'm so sorry," the man said, sounding annoyed. He stuck out a puffy hand to help Scott up. "Sherriff Ferrier. Look, kid, Barrett is new. He makes mistakes. Now, I'm legally obliged to inform you of your right to make a formal complaint, but I'm _also_ legally obliged to keep you away from Lydia until she's signed a formal statement. I'm willing to let that slip if you –"

"Yeah, yeah," Scott said, eyes already mapping the path he'd run around the side of the building the second they excused him. "No complaints, got it."

"Thanks kid. Ambulance is round the back."

He ran so fast that he was sure they'd suspect he was a supernatural, but he didn't have time to care about it. Alone, shivering in the back of the ambulance, was Lydia, with silent tears drying on her cheeks. She stared straight ahead of herself, lips slightly parted, a silver emergency blanket around her shoulders.

The ambulance bounced as he leapt up into it, but Lydia didn't even react. Scott watched her shiver violently for a moment before he pulled her into his chest, tucking her arms between them. After a moment he felt her clutch at the ties of his sweatshirt like they were a comfort blanket.

He held her until she had stopped shaking.

When he pulled away her hands remained clasping at the draw string of his hoodie desperately, and Scott took them gently in his own. He glanced around quickly, checking they were alone, and then looked into her eyes.

"Did you find a body?" he asked softly, squeezing her cold hands reassuringly.

He waited for a few moments, searching her blank face, almost giving up on a response when she nodded, so minutely that he would have thought it were a twitch had her heart not begun to race.

"Okay, Lydia," he whispered. "That's alright. We don't need to talk about it much longer, okay? I just need you to tell me if there's anything supernatural we're dealing with. Something that the police might ask questions about."

Her face crumpled, fresh tears squeezing out from behind her eyelids. She nodded, more obviously this time, a broken sob ripping through her. She pulled her hands out of his grip, pressing them against the side of her abdomen as she cried.

"What was it, Lyds?"

"Teeth," she choked out, folding in on herself. "She was all torn up, Scott."

Suddenly he knew why she was holding onto her stomach. Under the fabric of her dress was an angry red scar. Teeth marks.

He could smell it, now he thought about it. Another wolf, not Isaac. Possibly two.

Long gone, now.

He gave her a grim smile, nodding. "Okay. Nothing to worry about tonight. You've done everything you can."

He sat next to her on the gurney, tucking her under his arm, until a new officer came to see them.

"Lydia?" he said, looking between them as if it was impossible to tell who was who. "Right. Long night. My supervisor says you touched the body?"

To Scott's surprise, she nodded. He frowned at her.

"CPR," she whispered.

He and the new officer looked at her sadly.

"Right. Well, um, I'm Deputy Sharpe," he introduced himself. "I'm going to need to take your fingerprints, Lydia, because there's a fingerprint on her watch and we need to make sure it's not yours. And I need to get fibre samples from your clothes, and take a little bit of your hair, if that's okay. And then once that's done, you need to re-read the statement you made with Deputy Price and see if you're happy with it now that you're a little calmer. Then you can sign it and we'll let you get home."

Lydia stuck her hands out, offering him up her fingers, clearly desperate to leave.

"Your friend is worried about you," Sharpe said conversationally, setting a hard, plastic case onto the counter and opening it. He pulled purple latex gloves on with a well-practiced flourish. "Tried to slip me a fifty to let him come and see you. I told him your boyfriend was with you, and he'd have to wait until you'd signed your statement."

He took her hands gently, wiping down her finger tips with alcohol. The acrid smell stung Scott's nose.

"I was surprised that Ferrier let _you_ in here," he continued, looking at Scott. He discarded the wipe, flipping open a pad of black ink. "Press your thumb in this and roll your hand from side-to-side. You have to do each finger separately. See, we isolate witnesses so they can't confer – get their stories straight, and the like. Okay, your thumb print goes in _this_ box – roll it like you did in the ink - perfect. Same again, next finger. You weren't here, so it's not as bad for you two to talk, I guess. But Mikey, or whatever his name is – no, I told him. It's not worth my job letting him see you."

If it weren't for the fact that a dead girl was lying fifteen feet away from them, obscured by the wall of the building, Scott would probably have laughed at the butchered attempt at pronouncing _Mieczyslaw_.

"Ah, see, now we do all four fingers at once, no rolling."

"For accuracy," Lydia murmured, almost automatically.

"Right, to compare with the rolled ones. Flat prints. Considering a career in law enforcement?"

Lydia didn't respond.

"Her boyfriend is in the FBI. Violent crime division," Scott supplied.

Sharpe looked up abruptly. "You're FBI?" he asked, a hard edge in his voice. He picked up the alcohol swab and began to wipe the ink from Lydia's fingertips in a strangely maternal way. "Wouldn't tell the Sherriff that. Everyone's nightmare, the FBI swooping in and stealing the case from right under them. 'Spect they'll call you lot down here, anyhow, from the state of that body."

The Morning After by Meg Myers

She had a familiar headache when she woke up. The pain at the base of her neck, a remnant of her time in a cold flat in Dalston.

"Morning sunshine," Leo said, voice biting.

Morinna sat up, almost slumping to the side in her dizzy state. "What time is it?" she mumbled, frowning at the dark room around her.

"Five am," Leo informed her, sounding amused. "You and Jackson made friends?"

She peered around the room, spotting him in the doorway of the bathroom. He peeled off his black t-shirt, bundling it into a black trash bag. Something was wrong with that picture.

"Jackson?" she repeated. She put a hand to the back of her head, feeling something sticky. Blood, matted into her hair. Swallowing, she laid back down.

"You look confused," Leo commented, undoing his belt.

"Did you just get back?"

Leo rolled his eyes. "Even concussed, you're going to nag me when I stay out too late. Same old 'Rinna. You must have really pissed Jackson off, you know. He got you good, but we both know you can take a beating. You'd be dead if you were human." He tied up the trash bag, throwing it into the bathroom, and crawled onto the mattress next to her. "Ethan had to pull him off you. Still, you heal just as slowly as you did before. Gives you time to think about your temper."

He planted a kiss onto her shoulder blade and, even though his lips were a hundred times warmer than her cool skin, she shivered.

Leo brought a firm hand to her hip, fingers digging in to hold her still. He peppered a trail of kisses up to the back of her neck, stopping just at the base of her skull.

"Mmm, blood," he crooned. "Maybe I'm a vampire too. Blood. I've just got a taste for it."

Morinna shuddered. "That's disgusting," she whispered.

"You drink it out of a mug, baby. Don't throw stones in glass houses."

She rolled her eyes, trying to hold back the nausea. "Where did you go?"

Leo hummed in response, teeth scraping over the back of her neck. "Underwear off," he ordered, smacking her hip.

It took her a moment to process his words. "Are you serious? Leo, I feel like shit."

He pulled her towards him, the change in position making Morinna even dizzier. "Of course I am. I missed you," he said, pouting unconvincingly. "And I haven't gotten laid since you left. _I'd_ never betray you like that. You've been whoring around, I'm sure."

Even though she was sure his sudden chastity was bullshit, she felt a bizarre stab of outrage at his accusation. "I have _not_."

"Well, if you really love me then you'll want me to be happy," Leo said impatiently. "Here. Move." He sat up and hooked his hands around the waistband of her shorts, waiting for her to lift her hips off the bed.

"Leo, I love you, but I might _literally_ vomit if we fuck right now."

He made a little noise of annoyance and shuffled down to the end of the bed, yanking her shorts off, jerking violently. She was sure she heard a seam snapping, and it took her a few moments to regain her equilibrium. Leo was between her legs, already lining himself up.

"Leo, I swear to god –" she began, but he shushed her.

He pressed a hand to her cheek, turning her head so that she was looking at the wall instead of him and shoving her face into the pillow. He pushed into her quickly, and Morinna winced at the dry pain.

"It's so much more fun when you just co-operate, baby. When we work together, you and I? Nobody can see us coming. Nobody can stop that kind of power."

 **A/N: Hopefully it won't be too long before I can upload again, I'm pretty inspired at the moment and suddenly have more free time!**

 **Please leave your thoughts.**

 **Persephone xo**


	22. Chapter 22

**Hey everyone! Here's another chapter. I've just re-outlined this scene-by-scene and you may have noticed that we've gone up from 25 chapters to 30. I am so so so excited for some of the future scenes. I had to stop myself from writing out of order to get to them quicker.**

 **Hope you've all had great Easters!**

 **Persephone xo**

Reverse of Shade by The Windupdeads

"You can smell it too," Scott said in a low voice.

Isaac looked up, pulled from his thoughts, and frowned, wrinkling his nose. "I don't understand," he murmured.

"Er, Scotty, wanna catch me up here?" Stiles called back from the front seat, raised eyebrows reflected in the rear-view mirror.

"Wolves," Scott explained. "Nearby. But… we know them. And Morinna – Morinna's there too."

"We _know_ them? How could we know them, Scott, basically everyone's either dead or back in Beacon Hills!"

" _One mile to your destination._ "

Stiles glared at the GPS. "Guess we were right with the Corazon theory."

"What's the plan?" Scott asked. "You guys had a _plan_ , right?"

There was a silence.

"I guess I'll go and talk to her," Isaac mused, fingers pressed against the glass of the window.

Scott gave him a dead look. "We have no idea what we're walking into. We have no idea what Morinna is plotting, and it's clearly _something_ if she's hiding out in a motel with werewolves who already know us."

"Maybe we _don't_ know them. Maybe they just smell a lot like people we do know."

"Don't be an idiot. Who have we annoyed? Did anyone from the alpha pack survive?"

"Do you seriously think Morinna hid out in Beacon Hills, trying to befriend us, so she could then lure us into the middle of the desert and kill us along with some werewolf enemies that totally slipped our minds?" Isaac asked, rolling his eyes. "We'll be fine."

"I bet you didn't even bring any weapons," glowered Scott.

"We have _claws_ , Scott! And Lydia brought a giant bag of stakes as well."

"Oh, because Lydia is definitely in a fit state to be staking vampires right now," Scott said, giving Isaac a withering look.

They looked over at Lydia's small form, curled up in the front seat under every available jacket, only her hunched-over head and one pale ankle visible.

"Good thing we won't be staking anybody," Isaac said in a hard voice, jaw tight. "This is a diplomatic mission. We'll be in and out in ten minutes. I'll just politely explain that I, as a young werewolf who up until recently needed to be chained up on a full moon, totally understand that she accidentally drank a couple pints of my blood. Big misunderstanding. She can come back to Beacon Hills."

"What, where she can continue to chow down on human plasma?" Stiles asked from the front seat. "I vote we invite her back to Beacon Hills and then tell her about the exciting real estate opportunity known as Eichen House. _They_ can actually order her blood bags without the risk of anybody being murdered, with the added bonus of Edward fucking Cullen not being able to skip around brainwashing people!"

"Edward Cullen refused human blood, dumb ass. He ate deer," Isaac corrected him. "And Morinna would never agree to live in Eichen House. The place is a prison."

"Oh, so she's like Edward Cullen without any of the redeeming features? Sold. Wish you'd said that sooner," Stiles snorted. "I can't believe you fucking read _Twilight._ I can't believe you'd _admit_ you read Twilight. Look, Scott, I hate to be the reasonable, logical one here, I really do, but nobody said anything about Morinna agreeing. Knock her over the head, chuck her behind some mountain ash, everyone's a winner. It's for the _greater good_."

Isaac looked at Scott with pleading eyes. The alpha sighed, head in his hands.

"We're not institutionalising her. That's final. We just have to make sure we're prepared for anything, okay? Which means, Isaac, that you need to be open to the fact that we might not know Morinna the way you think we do. It won't hurt to carry a stake just in case. And Stiles, you need to drop us off and take Lydia a few miles away, where it's safe, until I call you."

"Bite me, McCall," Lydia piped in suddenly, sitting up. She ignored Stiles' muttered ' _Why not ask Morinna'_ and turned to narrow her eyes at her alpha. "I did not hand make stakes and find a body just to wait in the car. I can break doors down with my vocal chords. You need me."

I Know I'm a Wolf by The Young Heretics

"Sorry, _where_ did you pick this up?" hissed Scott, watching Isaac pick at the lock of the door with one of Lydia's bobby pins, tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth in concentration.

"Cuba. Be quiet."

"Yeah, and you never _did_ tell us what exactly it was that you were doing in Cuba."

"Scott, if you keep talking then I won't be able to hear what the lock is doing. If you keep talking, whatever werewolf has Morinna trapped in here will wake up. If you keep talking, I might have to fucking _strangle_ you."

Scott pressed mouth shut begrudgingly, tapping nervously on his thigh. Isaac continued to work on the lock, head tilted close to it.

"I don't see why we don't just knock."

Isaac shot him a dirty look, but the lock had already clicked into place so he stood up without a word, gripping the handle. He waited for Scott to nod before he pressed it down, pushing the door open with a long creak.

It took them a moment for their eyes to adjust to the dark room. It was stuffy and dated, stained brown carpet, dominated by a double bed in the centre. Morinna was sat on the corner of it, staring at them with wide eyes, and Isaac's stomach turned when he realised that somebody else was lying under the covers behind her.

She stood up and met them in the doorway as soon as his foot crossed the threshold, looking terrified. Isaac knew immediately that something wasn't right. He could see little purple bruises on her upper arms, and her hair was even messier than usual. She was wearing just a black bra and some rough edged pink shorts.

"What the hell are you doing?" she whispered, sounding more scared than angry,

"Saving you," Scott informed her, eyes narrowed at the bed. "I think."

"You have to go," she pleaded, glancing between them and the snoring figure.

Isaac looked suspicious, and grabbed her, turning her around. "You're hurt," he said accusingly, lifting up her hair to see the angry gash. He'd been able to smell the blood as soon as the door opened.

Morinna clapped her hand over the wound, pushing his arm away. "You need to leave before he wakes up."

"Too late, Rinna," Leo called out, sounding amused. He stretched like a cat, flinging the heavy motel sheet off his body and walking over to hover protectively over her shoulder wearing just a pair of white boxers. "I could have sworn I locked this door."

Scott pushed past Isaac, standing up straight. "Who are you?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Leo asked. "Especially seeing as you've just interrupted my sleep at, god, what, five in the morning? You're certainly not helping my jetlag."

"I'm the alpha of the Beacon Hills pack," Scott told him. "And we're here to talk to Morinna, so if you'd kindly let her get dressed and come for breakfast with us, then… then that would be great."

Leo laughed as Scott's threatening speech trailed off. "An alpha?" he repeated, sounding unconvinced. "Well then you'll understand that most packs don't take too kindly to people trying to poach their wolves. Morinna belongs with us. I'm afraid you've wasted your journey."

"You're in a pack?" Isaac echoed, sounding hurt. Morinna didn't react.

"Oh, amazing, you're the poor sod she strung along to get back at me?" Leo asked incredulously, looking Isaac up and down.

"No," Isaac said through gritted teeth. "Look, why don't you let Morinna talk to us alone? She can decide herself."

"I don't trust you. I'm sure she doesn't either," Leo replied shortly.

Scott looked to Morinna for confirmation, but her eyes were cast down. He reached out to put a finger under her chin, search her face for some indication of how she was feeling, but Leo smacked his hand away, smug expression not wavering.

"I'm not going to ask you again," he smiled, nodding at the door.

"Good for you. Let us talk to her," Isaac snapped.

Leo pulled her away from the doorway, and Morinna offered very little resistance. It was like she had retreated into herself, her face expressionless. Scott and Isaac followed almost automatically, and behind them the door shut with a click.

It was the sound of the lock turning that made them turn around.

"Trouble?" asked the sandy-haired man who was now stood against the door.

It's A Trip! by Joywave

"I don't think we thought this through," Lydia concluded, leaning against the side of the jeep and looking at the dark windows of the hotel appraisingly.

At the very edge of the horizon the sun was just creeping up over the desert, casting a faint pink glow on the sand, but the stars were still visible in the sky and her bare legs were still cold.

"You know, Scott just went on this whole rant about how unprepared we are. It was about ten minutes ago. I think you might have been there," Stiles mused, head leaning on Lydia's shoulder. "Fuck, I'm tired."

Lydia gave him a scornful look, hiding a laugh. "I mean we agreed that we'd wait here so she isn't intimidated and join if it gets nasty. But we don't have wolf hearing. How are we going to know if it gets nasty?"

Stiles sat up. "Oh, crap, yeah. They'll yell, right? Or howl, or something?"

Thirty feet away, the door to the reception area clicked open. A tall man stood in the doorway holding a disposable coffee cup and a bag of Cheetos. Stiles felt Lydia jerk beneath him and she stepped forward almost automatically, squinting through the darkness, one hand clutching at her chest.

She almost heard Stiles calling her name, but suddenly there were no other people in the parking lot, no cars, no buildings.

Just outside the office, Ethan frowned into the darkness. "Lydia?" he said in disbelief.

Across the lot he heard a little broken sob. Ethan watched as she crumpled, turning and burying her face into Stiles' shoulder. He put down the tea he was holding and jogged over to them.

"She thought I was Aiden, didn't she?" he clarified gently.

Lydia looked up, glaring at him. "Of course not," she snapped, wiping at her cheeks furiously. "Why are you here?"

Ethan looked conflicted. "Jackson is upstairs," he said. "He couldn't sleep so I was getting him tea. He'd probably like to see you."

"You're avoiding the question," Stiles said bluntly. "Why are you here? How do you know Morinna?"

Ethan narrowed his eyes. "How do _you_ know Morinna?"

"I asked you first."

Lydia rolled her eyes. "She bit Isaac. We want to talk to her. Your turn."

"She _bit_ him? Like, he's a vampire too?"

"He's fine. How do you know her?"

Ethan looked uncomfortable. "She's dating a member of our pack. Kinda. They had a fight a while back."

Stiles and Lydia looked sceptical. "Right. A fight," Stiles repeated. "You two live in London now, right?" He waited for Ethan to nod. "Any idea why she thought the London pack wanted to kill her?"

Ethan tried to keep his face neutral. "It was a bad fight?" he tried, not too convincingly.

Lydia was distracted from her second eye-roll by the sound of a door on the second storey, and when she squinted up at the walkway she saw Jackson heading towards them with a green hooded sweatshirt pulled up over his hair. Even after the horrific night she'd had, she couldn't help the smile that broke across her face. Breaking up had been one of the best things that could have happened to them both; without all that intensity and needless competition, she and Jackson could actually be good friends.

Jackson's eyes lit up as he noticed her, and he ran the short distance from the bottom of the steps to scoop her up. "Why are you here?" he asked, not sounding displeased.

"Morinna, of course," Ethan said, an edge to his voice.

To Stiles' chagrin, Lydia stayed with her arms wrapped around Jackson's waist when he put her down, his hand coming up to wind through the hair at the nape of her neck. She felt him flinch at the name at looked up at him thoughtfully.

"You hate her as well," she realised, grinning up at him. "God, I love being right. What did she do to you?"

"Nothing," he said quickly, pulling his fingers from her hair and resting gently on her shoulder instead. "We're just following orders. I hope you're not interfering," he warned them, looking pointedly at Stiles, who scoffed.

"Take her, please," he said dramatically. "We're just waiting for Scott and Isaac to finish with her and we'll be gone. _So_ gone. Your problem now."

Jackson's eyes widened. "You mean they're with her now?" he asked, face pale.

Ethan looked up at one of the doors, worry crossing his face.

"So is Leo."


	23. Chapter 23

A/N: Hey cuties! This chapter is my longest so far at over 4k. I wasn't expecting to write this much so it took a couple more days than anticipated. Can't wait to post the next chapter as things become clearer!

 **As I draw this to a close, are there any questions people have? I'm tying up all the plot ends of course, but I have so much in my head about the rules I using for vampirism in this, and little ideas of what Isaac was doing while he was gone. If anybody wants me to delve into any of that, let me know so I can feature it.**

 **Hope everyone's Easter/Passover has been good.**

 **Persephone xo**

Stompa by Serena Ryder

Morinna cringed as soon as he stepped through the door. It had been mere days since she had first met Scott and Isaac, and for her own sanity she'd tried not to get too attached to them, but that didn't mean that she would be able to live with watching them die.

Beaumont gave her a withering look, one that said he was equally annoyed and unsurprised, and she watched with horror as he stretched his fingers under the cuff of his dark green jacket, his claws slowly extending from the tips. Quick as a whip, he turned the lock on the door behind him.

"Trouble?" he asked, voice silken, dangerously quiet.

Scott and Isaac spun round and, zeroing in on the claws, immediately retaliated with their own. Beaumont laughed in response, scratching his jaw with the razor-sharp edge of one nail, and then retracted his claws with a quick flutter.

"The local pack?" he guessed. "You're very young. Don't worry, pups, we're just passing through. No quarrel with you. Give your alpha my regards."

Scott gave a low growl, shoulders tensing up. His eyes glowed red for a second like a warning light.

"They're from the Beacon Hills pack," Leo explained, hands vice-like on Morinna's shoulders. "They've come to take Morinna from us."

"Have they?" Beaumont said evenly, claws reappearing with a flourish. "Interesting. Interesting indeed. We can't have that, can we? Not after _everything_ we've done for her."

"All we are asking is that you let her talk to us. _Alone_ ," Scott said, voice laced with a thin note of threat. "If she wants to stay with you, she will. It's Morinna's decision."

"Well, Morinna would _never_ leave. She was alone when we found her, all alone. Eighteen years old and alone in the middle of London until we saved her. We're her family. We're all she has," Beaumont dismissed them, arms crossed. "It would be silly of me to leave her alone with you. I take the safety of my pack _very_ seriously. I'm sure you understand."

Scott scowled, weighing up his options. He couldn't think of a good enough reason to separate Morinna from her pack, especially if she didn't seem to be fighting very hard for it. She didn't seem to be fighting for anything much at all, barely dressed and staring at the ground with Leo holding onto her shoulders as if he was the only thing keeping her standing.

There wasn't much he could do.

"Morinna," he said gently. She didn't look up. "Do you want to leave here? Even for just a couple of hours."

"I'm fine," she replied in a small voice. "I'm sorry your journey was wasted."

Scott breathed out, defeated. Beside him Isaac clenched his fists.

"You heard the lady," Beaumont said. "Time for you to go."

"Bullshit," Isaac burst out.

He didn't have time to finish his sentence before Beaumont had him by the throat against the wall, Morinna gasping.

"I said, _time for you to go_ , Pup."

"Let go of him," Scott ordered, power behind his voice.

He took a step towards them, and Morinna found herself flung aside onto the mattress with a yelp as Leo moved past her to seize Scott by the upper arms.

"She's clearly fucking terrified," Isaac spat, his face a deep shade of red. "She'd leave with us if you weren't intimidating her."

Beaumont released him, one eye on Scott and Leo. "Shame that it's actually none of your business," he lamented. "I'm sure you don't want a pack war. Especially seeing as two of your _very_ human friends are outside with some of our deadliest wolves."

"We'll leave," Scott said quickly, swiping Leo's hands from his arms. "Now." He looked over at Morinna, who was sat on the edge of the bed, fist clenched around the sheet. "Stay safe, Morinna. I'm serious."

She nodded wordlessly, grey eyes big and sad.

"This isn't over," Isaac growled, staring at her. She looked away.

"Yes, it is," Beaumont said, sounding bored. He pulled open the door, bowing sarcastically.

Reluctantly, Scott nodded at Isaac to go first. He had just reached the threshold when he heard the frantic cry, "Isaac, wait!"

He looked up. Morinna was standing, Leo's arms looped around her waist. She looked torn.

"I regret it," she said. "The last thing I said to you. I wish I hadn't said it."

Isaac looked directly into her eyes for a few seconds and then, finally, gave a short nod. Morinna watched them leave, her heart sinking, nausea setting in.

They didn't speak as they walked down the steps to the parking lot, the sun snaking over the horizon and dawn painting everything a shade of purple. It was setting up to be a beautiful day, almost morning, already hot. It felt at odds with the situation. Too tranquil. Too perfect.

"Oh my god," Scott said suddenly, spotting the group huddled around the jeep. "Is that Jackson? And Ethan? London, of course. I can't believe we didn't figure that out."

"We need to save her," Isaac said quietly, pausing at the bottom of the steps. "Scott, I'm serious. You saw her. She wasn't okay."

Scott sucked on his lower lip. "I know. But, Isaac, you heard her. And you know she's dating that Leo guy. We can't help her if she doesn't want to leave." He tried to ignore how Isaac's heartbeat picked up at the mention of Morinna's boyfriend.

"She wants to leave," Isaac insisted. "Something was seriously wrong. Her head – and there were dents in the wall, scuff marks. And what she said to me, about regretting what she'd said…"

"Which was?"

"It took me a moment. Everything is still a bit mixed up, but I think the last thing she said was ' _don't follow me'_."

"But she literally just said we'd wasted our journey."

"I know, Scott," Isaac sighed. "I think it was code. She couldn't talk in front of them, right? Especially not with that asshole digging his claws into her shoulders. They're obviously not scared of hurting her. So she had to say she was fine, but she's not. She regrets telling me not to follow, because she wants us to follow her. She wants us to _rescue_ her."

Scott nodded, thinking. "You're sure that's the last thing she said?"

Isaac shrugged. "Even if it isn't. Even if she's a bloodsucking vampire and she bit me on purpose and she's in love with that idiot and she wants to stay there forever. If that was your mom, or if that was Lydia, or Malia, wouldn't we be doing whatever we could to get her out of there?"

Help Me Mama by ZZ Ward

It was really hard pretending everything was fine.

Beaumont had relocked the door and taken the room next to them, leaving Morinna with an extra bruise on her brow and the warning that he was leaving his door open and would be able to hear if she tried to leave. He had taken to smoking stood on the walkway, the smell bleeding into her own room. They both knew she could break out if she truly wanted to.

He didn't think she had the nerve.

It was terrifying, out there alone. Especially now she knew what sort of monsters lurked just below the surface of every city – even quiet little Beacon Hills, a mid-sized, anonymous sort of town. She wasn't ever going to be safe again, not without them, and - when she co-operated - Leo could be amicable. Charming, even. Both Beaumont and Leo were banking on the fact that she really had been in love with Leo once. Right at the beginning. Back then she would have done anything he'd told her too. They knew it wouldn't take a lot to get her back there, if she wasn't there already.

She'd only left him because she was sure that they wanted to kill her. Couldn't blame them for it, either. Blood drinking was a deal-breaker for most people. Now she wasn't sure he'd ever wanted that at all. In their eyes, she had no reason to leave.

They hadn't taken into account the week she'd just had.

Morinna knew what caring looked like. She knew what a pack that didn't operate on fear looked like. And Stiles, for all he hated her, had shown her what love was over the past weeks as he moved around Lydia like a satellite.

Even if she did love Leo, he didn't love her. He didn't care about her, not really. She could see that now.

So, it was up to her to escape once again, and this time she swore that nobody else would be hurt as she did it. That meant playing by the rules, right up to the last second, and then running before anybody could think twice.

Morinna drank the packet of blood that Leo had brought her – 'that's what I was doing last night… you know, when you were so mad at me for leaving?' he'd said, chucking it onto her lap – and tried not to show how utterly thirsty she'd been, drinking it like a juice packet because she didn't want to remind him what a monster she actually was. Then she began to get ready for the day, patting her chalky foundation over the bruises blossoming on the left side of her face, trying not to wince as she did it. Leo watched her from the bed, playing on his phone.

"It's nice to see you making an effort again," he commented. "You're pretty when you try."

She gave an empty smile and painted her lips red, then brushed out her hair. It was very knotty. Probably from the fact that she had been thrown around a lot over the past few hours. Then she selected some skinny black jeans and a dark red crop-top to wear, finishing with some biker boots and a suede jacket.

Then she crawled onto the mattress and swung one leg over Leo's, smiling expectantly at him until he put the phone down and put his hands on her waist.

"Are we going back to London?" she asked evenly.

"Yes. In a few days," he said. "We thought it would take a bit longer to find you, I have to admit."

Morinna shrugged, falling forward to put her head on his chest. "Maybe I wanted to be found."

Leo chuckled. "Oh yeah."

Morinna looked up at him through her lashes, close enough to kiss him.

"You should take a shower," she said in a low voice.

Leo looked at her for a long moment and then shrugged. "Maybe I will," he said, but he patted her leg until she rolled off him and walked into the bathroom, starting the water. "What are you doing?" he asked as she went to shut the door between them.

"The guy at reception told me that the steam can set off the fire alarm. So you have to shut the door," she explained without missing a beat.

Leo hesitated. Finally, he nodded, stepping back to shut the door.

She had fifteen minutes. Leo took long showers.

Morinna wasted no time filling her bag with spare underwear, shirts, cash and her phone. She hovered with her ears to the wall, praying that Beaumont would take a smoking break soon. He too two or three an hour, and she'd tried so hard to time this right.

Finally, after five long minutes, she heard him sigh and head towards his front door. She went immediately to the window, not sure she'd have enough time to do it but beginning anyway. The window was blocked from opening all the way by a metal bump screwed into the wall and the unit that the blinds rolled up into.

With a lack of suitable tools, Morinna held her breath and lined the corner of her thumbnail up with the centre of one of the screws. Her nails were certainly stronger than they had been when she was human, but she still wasn't sure if she could literally use them as a screw-driver. Thinking twice, she used her other hand to press down on the nail and hopefully avoid ripping it off. Bracing herself, she began to turn her wrist, and thankfully felt the screw loosen ever so slightly. After about thirty seconds she managed to turn it enough for it to stick out from the metal and, thumb throbbing, started to twist it with the tips of her fingers until she could pull it out. She immediately moved onto the other screw, wasting another precious minute removing it and pulling the chunk of metal off the wall.

Feeling nauseous, she realised that there was no way she'd be able to remove the two screws from the blinds in the minutes she had left. Wincing at how stupid the idea was, she gripped the bar and gave it a tentative tug, testing it, and then began the cough loudly, yanking it from the window with the sound of metal being mangled.

The water immediately turned off in the bathroom, and Leo called out to her.

"Terrible cough, I think it's the stuffy air," she said loudly, hoping it would at least slow him down as she swung her bag over her shoulder, yanked the window open towards her and ducked under the pain of glass, climbing through.

It was at least twenty feet up, but she didn't have time to worry about it. She had scarcely enough time to think "oh, shit" as the ground came towards her, fast, and suddenly she had hit it and was rolling through the sand. It took a little more than that for her to break a bone, but _god_ the impact felt like she had been hit by a truck.

Morinna leapt up from the ground and raced around to the other side of the building, stopping for just a moment to see if Beaumont was on the walkway – by some miracle he wasn't – and to assess the area. She was intensely relieved to see that the jeep was in the parking lot, unsupervised.

Fastened with rope to the back of it was Scott's motorbike.

Kill of the Night by Gin Wigmore

"Yeah, top of my class, no big deal. I've been trained in one hundred and fifty-two specific ways to kill a man with my bare hands, but I don't like to brag about it. I'm working on one hundred and fifty-three, now, but it's just theoretical at the moment," Stiles said nonchalantly, toeing the carpet with his scuffed converse.

Jackson nodded, eyebrows raised. "I'm sure it is," he said, trying to keep his face serious. Lydia suppressed a laugh next to him, hiding her smile behind her paper cup of bitter coffee.

"It's been pretty quiet for you in London, I guess."

"Quiet?"

"Yeah, I mean, you guys don't have a _beacon_ , so…"

Jackson nodded seriously. "Yeah, we don't have a beacon. Just all the native creatures. The fairies are a real pain in the ass. And, you know, the vampires. Boggarts… the Loch Ness monster - we have to keep ol' Nessie fed or she starts to chow down on all the local fisherman. And it's not so much wolves as foxes. Very quiet."

Stiles tilted his head, intrigued. "The Loch Ness monster, really?"

"No, asshole. There are six different packs of wolves in London, you think it's quiet? _Banshees_ came from the UK, Stilinski," Jackson snorted.

Stiles glowered. Sympathetic, Lydia pushed off from the wall she was leaning against to tuck herself under his arm. She immediately felt a change as he stood up a little taller, reminded that he had, for once, gotten the girl.

"Your alpha seemed… interesting," Scott chipped in from his seat on the brown carpeted floor of the reception, nursing a package of cookies.

Ethan snickered. "Beaumont's a character, alright," he admitted.

"And his second, Leo, also seemed…" Scott trailed off, trying to find the words to be diplomatic.

"Like a massive fucking dickhead?" Isaac piped up humourlessly, lying on the floor with his eyes to the ceiling.

"Oh, Leo's not his second," Ethan explained. "Robert's keeping the pack together in London. Leo is just… I don't know. Same level as us, I guess."

Scott looked suspicious. "Right. It's just… never mind. But you guys are happy, right? They don't seem like your kind of pack."

Ethan shrugged. "Eat or be eaten. It's safer than being alone. And they're not all bad – if you don't cross them."

"Morinna would be smart to learn that," Jackson said, a dark undertone in his voice.

Lydia looked up, her interest piqued. "And what does that mean?"

Jackson gave her an appraising look. "It means that Beaumont offered her protection when she didn't have any, and she betrayed him by killing a member of his pack. Ungrateful bitch."

Lydia couldn't decide if she was more shocked at the revelation or the misogyny. There was a dizzy silence, and then Isaac sat up.

"I thought they were protecting her?"

"Yeah, they were," Jackson began.

"No. Upstairs, just now, they wouldn't let her leave with us because they said she was a member of your pack and they were protecting her," Isaac said in a hard voice, working hard to control his temper and panic. "Why would they do that if she betrayed them?"

Stiles looked around him in disbelief. "Did anyone else hear the part where she killed someone? Just me?"

"Oh crap," Ethan said suddenly, spying an angry Leo storming across the parking lot towards them. Scott and Isaac scrambled up from the floor just as he reached the glass door, flinging it open. It hit the brick wall outside with a bang that resonated through the room.

"You helped her!" he roared, going straight for Scott, claws out.

Isaac stepped in between, eyes glowing a bright blue, ears elongated, shoving Leo back towards the door. Scott gave a warning snarl, and Jackson and Ethan stepped closer, the instinct to protect their own pack taking over. Stiles immediately pulled Lydia behind him, pressing her between his back and the wall, hand shooting down to his thigh. He remembered with a jolt that this wasn't training, he wasn't carrying a gun, and his girlfriend was trapped in a small space between five angry werewolves.

Leo lurched forward again, catching Isaac on the shoulder and pushing him off balance. He wound an arm around Isaac's neck, pressing on his windpipe, and tangled a fist into the hair at the back of his head.

"One yank and I break his neck," he hissed, chest heaving, looking between Isaac and Scott for signs of dissent. They stayed frozen. "No funny business. You helped Morinna leave. Where is she?"

"You had her locked up, asshole, shouldn't you know?" Isaac growled, clawing at the forearm constricting his oxygen.

"Hilarious," Leo sneered. He loosened his grip on Isaac's throat, letting him gasp for air, but his hand moved to the face, claws dragging down Isaac's cheek, leaving angry wounds in their wake. Scott almost lunged, but Ethan and Jackson stepped in, seizing an arm each and holding him back. "Morinna has run away. Again. And you were clearly here to get her out, so _where is she_?"

"We didn't help her," Scott said through gritted teeth. "Now, let Isaac go. We don't know anything."

"Right," Leo said. Then, suddenly, incongruously, he started laughing. "Right," he chuckled, releasing Isaac who darted away, turning around to square up once more.

As soon as everyone had relaxed he went for Scott's throat.

He tackled the alpha to the ground, snarling, pinning him to the ground. Isaac and Stiles dove after him, instinct kicking in as they saw the glinting white teeth aiming for the jugular. They managed to tear him away, his struggle as they pulled back knocking Stiles off balance. He fell towards the wall, hand out to break the fall.

They all heard the bone snapping.

Stiles gasped as the pain shot through his wrist and up his arm, almost making him vomit. He fell next to Scott, who had just been scrambling to his feet when the sound of snapping bone had made him freeze. Lydia lurched forward to stand over her boyfriend just a second before Leo lunged once more, before she had time to do much at all, clipping Lydia's shoulder with his claws as he went for Scott once more.

Pack loyalties aside, neither Jackson nor Ethan could watch Lydia bleed and Jackson pulled her back to stand behind them as pain blossomed in her shoulder. Scott had anticipated Leo's second attack and risen up to push him back, slashing three deep welts through his side, and Isaac joined him as they advanced. Next to them, Stiles was trying to stand up without agitating his limp wrist. Lydia, seeing him still in the danger zone, tried to force her way out from behind Ethan and Jackson to help.

Leo, panting heavily, eyes blue and bloodthirsty, steeled himself for another assault.

"Duck!" Lydia shrieked, giving her pack two seconds to comprehend her work before she took a deep, gasping breath, ducking under Ethan's elbow, and screamed.

Leo fell back, out through the door a fragment of a second after it shattered into hundreds of pieces.

Stood a few feet behind him, lit cigarette in hand, Beaumont looked utterly bored.

Lydia swayed, Jackson darting forward to help her regain her balance. Scott and Isaac stood up slowly, gleaming red visible from their ears.

"That's my girlfriend," Stiles announced, beaming, despite the sheen of sweat on his pale skin that Lydia knew was hidden pain. He held his wrist against his stomach, trying to keep it stable, though it hung at a weird angle. Snapping out of the shock, Scott stuck a hand out to take the pain.

Beaumont stepped over Leo, who was sitting up with glittering shards of glass sticking out of his leather jacket, and over a the peppy red ' _Gone for lunch!'_ sign that had been stuck to the door of the reception area, his boots making little crunching noises. He threw his cigarette to the ground, not bothering to stamp on it.

"You didn't help her escape, I take it?" he sighed, hovering in what had once been a doorway. He watched Scott shake his head, and then threw him some keys. "She took your motorcycle. Left her car keys, though. I guess you're even. Now, petty _arguments_ aside, it seems to me that we've all been taken in by Morinna's… _charm_ ¸ for lack of a better word. She convinced us that she'd changed, and she convinced you that she was never a monster in the first place. No point lingering on who's to blame. We have a vampire problem. How are we going to solve it?"

"Find the bitch," Leo piped in, now standing and picking glass from his sleeve.

Isaac clenched his jaw. "We'll deal with it," he announced, and Scott gave him a warning look to remind him who was actually in charge.

"Well, she's probably in Beacon Hills. That much is obvious, she knows the area and she clearly thinks that _you_ will protect her," Leo explained in such a casual way that it seemed he had forgotten that he had tried to kill them moments before. "This is our problem. We'll deal with it, and then we'll be out of your hair."

Scott scowled. "I'm sure you understand," he said, addressing Beaumont, "that it would be very irresponsible to allow a different pack to hunt a vampire in our territory. We have a responsibility to protect the area. If she's in Beacon Hills, then she's our problem."

Beaumont looked annoyed. "We'd not cause any issues," he protested.

"It's just not necessary. We forbid it," Scott said decisively. "If you enter our territory, my pack – my _whole_ pack – will be forced to take action."

The opposing alpha forced a smile. "Understood. We'll try and track her elsewhere," he said, holding back a sneer.

Scott could always spot a liar.


	24. Chapter 24

**Wow, it's been a hot minute since I last posted. I had this almost ready to go (maybe 500 words from completion!) when the dreaded finals season hit and I ended up in the library for 2 weeks straight, making it a month since the last update.**

 **As an apology, this chapter is over 4k and also has some heavy Lydia – which someone asked for, but was already planned! If you were a fan of Laiden/Aidia, you'll love this. I had so much fun exploring their old relationship.**

 **I have another final in about a week, but hopefully then updates will start to come on faster as my summer begins.**

 **Please remember to review and get your requests in so I can try and slot them into the final six chapters – they're already outlined, so if you want something particular (like more attention on a specific pairing) then let me know and I will see if I have room for it!**

 **Thanks loves,**

 **xo Persephone**

Haunted by Maty Noyes

So, she'd never really been on a motorbike before.

It seemed pretty simple. She'd figured out what it was that made the bike jolt forward, and that was probably the most pertinent thing for the current situation. It turned out that braking was quite simple, too, and she was sure that would come in handy in the near future. Morinna still hadn't figured out the gears or what they meant, so she had flicked to the one that sounded _least_ like the bike was going to explode and opted for that.

Steering wasn't too difficult, either. Common sense, really. Her main concern was not crashing. She was sure she'd survive it, she was tough like that, but one of the downsides to being basically dead was that her healing was definitely _not_ up to werewolf standards. Her head injury was scabbed over and aching so badly it felt that someone was throwing an anvil around inside her skull. She knew a broken bone would take months to heal, not that it would matter because Leo would almost certainly catch up with her before then and probably kill her for walking out on him again.

The sun, blistering and red above the parched desert, was the only thing in the sky and with the likelihood of rain hovering firmly around the _nil_ mark, speed was Morinna's only option. No matter where she went, Leo would be able to track her by scent. She had considered taking a random turn, finding a new town with new people, but he'd arrive just an hour behind her and her own lack of knowledge of the area would even the playing field. Far better, she rationalised, to run back to Beacon Hills where she at least knew vaguely where things were. She could only hope that Malia or Liam or even Danny were still sympathetic after all the accidental blood sucking and might offer her some actual assistance.

Her thoughts were torn into by a smell – a sudden, smoky, metallic smell, a smell that made Morinna's chest ache and her throat burn.

Blood.

Suddenly, as her thirst fought its way to the front of her mind, speed didn't seem to be the most important thing anymore.

Ahead of her was a shabby diner, peeling red paint on its wood base, only one car in the parking lot. She could unmistakeably smell blood – human blood – and not the muted, powdery scent of plasma under skin. Ordinarily, her nose was only marginally better than it had been before it turned, but she could always smell blood from at least a quarter of a mile. It called out to her.

Morinna at least had the foresight park up around the back of the back of the building, where the bike would be less visible from the road. She swung her leg over the seat, almost burning herself on the hot metal of the engine, and tried to figure out how it was supposed to stand up by itself. After a few seconds she settled for resting it on its side. Scratched paint seemed like the least of her problems right now.

Letting her nose guide her, she rounded the side of the building and through the glass door, setting off the little bell that sat above it. Behind the counter a twenty-something with dark skin, expressive eyes and a yellow striped shirt jumped up from his stool, but she ignored him as she was pulled to the right side, towards the door in the corner: the ladies bathroom.

"Toilet's closed," the worker called after her.

She tried the door, his voice almost sounding as if it were underwater. Locked.

"Hey, lady! Can't you read?"

Morinna blinked. Taut against the wood in front of her was a white strip of plastic, blue lettering evenly spaced across it… _police line_?

"Oh," she said, a hand still resting on the door, suddenly back to her senses. "Oh. What happened?"

"Some girl got herself murdered," he replied, sounding morbidly interested. "I'm not supposed to be talking about it. They took the body, obviously, but they didn't send clean-up yet. You can use the men's if you need to go."

"I'm okay," Morinna said numbly, a memory crawling into the back of her head. "Do you have any bottled water? I need to go. I need to go, now."

He raised his eyebrows, turning around to pull a plastic bottle out of the refrigerator. "It's two dollars."

She pulled a handful of crumpled notes out of her bag, not looking at them, and pushed them over the counter, snatching up the water and thanking the worker robotically. Walking around the diner, Morinna almost broke into a run.

There were two smells she always recognised. She had expected neither of them at the diner.

Not Gonna Let You Walk Away by LOLO

"I don't see why I can't drive," Lydia muttered indignantly from the back seat.

Scott, the only person in the front seat, felt a lot like their parent. "Because you're hurt," he said evenly. "So, you're distracted. I'm driving. We've already argued about this."

"It's just a scratch," Lydia protested. "It doesn't even hurt."

"I wonder why that is," Isaac mused dramatically, hands wrapped around both Lydia and Stiles' upper arms as he leached their pain, black tendrils swirling up his forearms. He looked at the two deep wounds in her shoulder, pink muscle glistening beneath the surface. "You need stitches. Why don't you sleep, Lydia?"

She narrowed her eyes at Stiles, who was snoring away with his forehead pressed against the window and drool pooling at the corner of his mouth. He was ridiculously adorable, of course, but she was still slightly bitter that he could sleep in a situation like this.

"Because we're obviously about to be attacked by rabid British werewolves any second, Isaac, do I look stupid?"

"I'm not so sure," Scott said, looking thoughtfully out the window. "Not when they have Ethan and Jackson on their side. They'd talk them out of it, surely?"

"This is Jackson we're talking about, I'm not sure about anything. You saw the state of Morinna."

"Morinna?" Lydia asked, curiosity piqued. "What state was she in? You never actually said."

Isaac looked frustrated, pulling his hands away from she and Stiles so he could concentrate. Lydia felt the dull ache in her shoulder return instantly, knowing that it was going to grow until she felt sick again. Being torn apart by Peter had definitely changed her relationship with blood.

"She wasn't good. I couldn't quite figure it out," he said slowly. "She wasn't tied up or anything. She could probably have run if she really wanted, though I guess the guy with her would have heard her."

"The guy? Leo? The crazy one?"

"The crazy one. But that's the thing. He's her boyfriend, right? And they definitely acted like it. They were sleeping in the same bed, and… well, I'm sure Scott noticed that they were… close."

"Maybe she just has terrible taste," Lydia suggested.

Isaac shook his head. "She had a cut on the back of her head, a bad one. And bruises – on her neck, her arms, it looked like on her cheek, too, but that could have been a shadow. And they were just pretending they weren't there. Hadn't cleaned up the wound or anything."

Lydia looked at him for a long moment, face lit up golden in the sun, and then turned to look straight ahead. "You know they're following us, right? The crazy one. They won't be more than a few miles back."

Scott shrugged. "I figured earlier. I knew they would."

"Oh, and you didn't think to express that when you two shook hands on them staying far away?" Isaac asked.

"They were going to do it anyway," Scott said. "Leo went insane when he thought we'd helped her leave. He'd follow her into the centre of the sun. Might as well let them think we don't know, at least. It keeps us a step ahead of them."

"So, what's the plan?"

Scott sighed. "Take these two to a hospital? I don't know, Isaac. I think Morinna's going to have to look after herself for a few hours at least. We all need to sleep – for real, Isaac," he added, pre-empting the objection. "You were meant to be on bed rest for another few days. And Lydia and Stiles haven't had a proper night's sleep. Neither have I. We're running on empty. I'm sure she'll find us in an emergency."

Isaac glowered at him. "Fine. Only because you're slow when you're tired."

Heartbeat by VÉRITÉ

The house was cold and empty. It was familiar, in a sad sort of way. Lydia was pretty sure her mother was in Vancouver, visiting a college friend. She had noticed it written on the kitchen calendar.

It was the first time she had been alone in the house since she had come back for the summer. Usually Stiles was with her, filling the empty space with his bad jokes. They had reluctantly agreed that sharing a bed would be a bad idea with their respective broken bones and stitches, and while he had valiantly offered to sleep on the floor, Lydia was eager to get back to Prada and Noah was insistent that Stiles needed a night in his own bed.

Her shoulder stung, the stitches pulling at her tender skin whenever she moved her arms. She was going to have another set of scars. She'd never really been very jealous of the werewolves; even when she had been stuck in hospital before, faster healing hadn't seemed worth everything else that came with lycanthropy. The scars, however, were a different story. Even time wasn't going to make them disappear completely.

Beauty. It was something of a sore point for Lydia.

She was smart. Ridiculously smart, which was why she had been popular, in a perverse sort of way. From a young age she had seen how women were treated, noticed with an astute eye that the pretty ones were treated better. Of course, natural beauty helped, but that wasn't everything. It was like a research project for her; every few months she would pull out her stack of fashion magazines, make sure she knew enough to stay ahead of the trends. She spent hours on her hair, on her skin, on honing her makeup skills so that she always looked perfect. Pretending she wasn't smart, well, that had been a hard pill to swallow, but so much of being popular was about being desired by men. Men didn't desire women they felt inferior to.

Freshman year had gone so well. She'd marched in, Birkin bag at the crook of her arm, and by lunchtime she had picked Jackson out from the other guys. It was power, she was pretty sure, the hum of power she felt under his skin. She knew he was headed straight to the top, and she was going to be there with him.

Then everything had unravelled. It turned out that emotions got in the way of plans sometimes, and his eyes had wandered, and so had her own. Then she'd ended up at prom with Stiles, of all people, and all of a sudden she had ugly crescent scars on her abdomen and the unshakeable reputational damage of wandering naked in a forest for days on end.

College had been easy so far, at least. Beauty _and_ brains were selling points at MIT, and the anonymity of a big campus had meant that her wandering around and finding bodies wasn't too much of an issue. She hadn't made any friends for life – she found it hard to relate to people without crippling supernatural trauma these days – but she always had someone to sit and study over lattes with.

And now she had another scar. Bikinis had been out of the question for a while, but now anything sleeveless was no longer an option either. She hated being vain, and - though she'd always viewed it as a tool with which she could take over the world - it turned out that beauty was actually very, very important to her.

Lydia couldn't imagine what she would do if the next scar was on her face.

She shook her head, trying not to fall over the cliff of anxiety. Feeling the sting once again, Lydia went into the kitchen and pulled open one of the drawers in the island, finding the plastic wrap. She took it up through the echoing house with her, walking through to her en-suite and setting it down on the counter. Under her sink she found a green plastic first aid kit, flipping it open and rummaging until she found the microporous tape.

It felt good to finally step out of the outfit she had been wearing for over twenty-four hours. Lydia shook out her hair, running her fingers through it, and then sweeping it over to her right shoulder. She pulled out a length of plastic wrap and smoothed it over the bloodied gauze that hid her stitches, sticking it down with the tape. Then she stepped into the shower.

She felt her back muscles relaxing instantly as the hot water rolled over her spine, goose pimples rising on her pale skin. It was easy to disappear in a shower. Nobody was watching her, there was nothing to think about, and it was the only time she ever allowed herself to relax fully. Who was going to break into her house while she was showering?

Lydia shampooed twice, just to make sure the blood was out of her hair, then conditioned, shaved, and scrubbed at her skin until it was red with her favourite cherry blossom soap. When she stepped out into the cold bathroom her eyes were already heavy, but she combed through her hair, flipping it upside down to quickly blow-dry it. She hated sleeping with wet hair.

She swung open the door to her bedroom, rubbing her tired eyes, ready to get several hours of sleep.

There was a man on her bed.

Lydia blanched, a shriek tearing from her mouth, her hands moving to cover her breasts in a panic. The man sighed dramatically in response, pointedly covering his eyes.

"It's just a body, Lydia. You know I'm not staring at you," Ethan said, sounding bored. He was reclined on her bed, shoes on her silk sheets.

She glowered at him, storming across the room and snatching up a floral robe from the back of her door, pulling it on.

"Are you kidding me?" she hissed, glaring at him. She narrowed her eyes at Prada. "Some guard dog you are."

"All dogs are friends," Ethan said lightly. "How's your shoulder?"

"It's been better," Lydia muttered, pulling open a drawer and finding a pair of panties to step into.

"Come, sit. I hear I have good hands," he said, wiggling his fingers at her.

She stared at him with suspicion, the ache in her shoulder finally winning her over. She climbed onto the bed beside him, letting him settle an arm around her as he pulled her pain.

"You said you weren't following," she said, too tired to sound very intimidating.

"Beaumont said that, not me. Though you've probably figured he's here, too, huh?"

"If you let that man into my house I will actually murder you –" Lydia ranted, propping herself up on her elbow.

"No, no, no, he doesn't know I'm here. In fact, he'd kill me himself if he found out. I actually, uh, needed to talk to you," Ethan said, suddenly looking very serious.

"About?"

"Jackson. And Morinna. Look, I'm sure you're wondering why we're so determined that she isn't just let loose out there."

"Because your psychopath packmate is obsessed with her?"

Ethan's cheek twitched like he was in pain. "That's why she's still alive, against everyone's better judgement, but no, this isn't just about Leo. Did you know she could feed on emotions?"

"What's your point?"

Ethan looked reluctant, rolling onto his side to face her. "You can't tell Jackson I told you this. Okay?" He waited for her to nod before he continued. "Morinna was newly turned when Leo found her. He has a… _habit_ of picking up broken girls. Girls with nobody to look out for them, you know the type. We were in a club in Dalston and we smelt her immediately. It was like a dream come true for Leo; this terrified, lonely kid, just turned eighteen, just turned into a vampire a month or so before."

"That doesn't sound predatory at all," sniped Lydia, trying to keep her eyes open.

"I never said I agreed with the guy. But for a while it seemed like he was doing the right thing. Beaumont had come across vampires before, years ago, so he was able to explain everything to her. She wasn't very good at the blood stealing thing, so Leo would go and get some for her. She was terrified that the vampire who turned her was going to find her, he protected her. She was madly in love with him, of course. Everyone just left them to it."

"But?"

"But Leo got bored. Kept forgetting to bring her blood, so then of course he couldn't let her leave because she would have drained the first person she came across. She started bitching at him, half because she was trapped and half because she was hungry. Leo wasn't used to being bitched at, so he wasn't at all patient. Then Beaumont, who never liked her anyway, got bored of the whole situation. He told Leo that the pet vampire thing clearly wasn't working out, and seeing as she'd just kill people if they let her leave, he had to kill her."

Lydia pressed her lips together, clearly conflicted.

"Yeah, dubious morals, I know. But Beaumont is _very_ serious about protecting London, and Morinna had accidentally drained a few people before Leo had saved her. We all agreed it was the best way forward. Leo agreed, even, though he wanted to string it out as long as he could. He liked having her around, even if he didn't love her."

"So where does Jackson come into this?"

"Well, you and I both know that Jackson has a bit of a temper. When I convinced him to join the pack, it was a learning curve, you know? He really had to work to be able to fall into the pack dynamics. But it was really good for him – he was more patient, he was calmer, less aggressive. And then Morinna comes along. We had to guard her door, you know. In shifts. The last night that Morinna was with us, she was starving. Jackson and one other guy, Michael, were keeping watch and she was begging them to get her blood, insisting she was going to die. The next thing we know, she's out the door and he and Jackson are out cold on the floor."

"She knocked them out?" Lydia clarified, sounding impressed. Morinna was even shorter than she was.

"That's the thing – she didn't. They had no injuries. But Michael – Michael never woke up. He was brain-dead. And then Jackson… well, he just wasn't right, Lydia. He was confused, kept forgetting who people were. The slightest thing would set him off, he was so angry. It was like he'd forgotten everything he'd learnt since he joined the pack. Beaumont knew what it was right away."

"It's the emotion sucking thing, isn't it?" Lydia guessed, understanding crossing her face. "It made no sense that she wouldn't just drink emotions instead of blood if there was no downside. I figured something bad must happen if she went too far."

Ethan nodded. "That's what Beaumont said it was, at least. He hadn't bothered to tell her about it, because apparently not all vampires can do it and she'd shown no sign of it before. But Morinna could do it, clearly, and she used it to kill Michael and leave."

"But Jackson? Jackson's okay, right? He relearnt the pack dynamic stuff, and now he's good?"

Ethan looked at her sadly. "You don't notice it at first, Lydia, but there's something really wrong. It's like he's stuck in this weird place. He's angry and confused all the damn time, and sometimes he wakes up and has no idea where he is or who I even am. And full moons, Lydia – he totally loses control. We have to lock him up like a new born while he shifts back and forth, and in between shifts – god, it's horrible. He screams and cries, has no idea what's going on. It's like he's turning for the first time, over and over again."

Lydia rolled onto her back, frowning up at the ceiling. "I could kill her myself," she said bitterly.

"But you won't, Lydia," Ethan said, sounding forlorn. He sighed, tightening the arm he had tucked around her. "Aiden was always so sure of what to do. You remember?"

Lydia hesitated for a moment, not meeting his eyes. "I remember."

"You changed that. You were the first thing he didn't know. I think it was why he loved you, Lydia. He didn't know where he stood with you. He had to stay alert. He had to figure you out."

Ethan's voice was barely above a whisper. Lydia found herself exhausted, her bottom lip trembling, each of his words adding a pound of weight to the ache in her chest.

"Then, whenever he thought he'd done it, you flipped the switch. He came home once and just started kicking things. 'It's what we do' – that's what he kept saying. 'We ruin things, it's what we do.' And when I calmed him down enough to get him to tell me what was going on, he told me you'd broken up with him because he was one of the bad guys. You didn't want to be with a bad –"

"Stop," Lydia broke in, pulling his arm away from her and sitting up, back turned from him. The room pitched to one side, nausea bursting through her as the pain in her shoulder re-emerged. "Why are you telling me this? I don't… why… I don't want to hear that."

"You're a _good person_ , Lydia. That's why you would never kill Morinna. You want to do the right thing. Aiden was trying to do the right thing. He wanted to be the good guy. And maybe I'm just selfish, but I think I want that too."

"What are you saying?"

Ethan exhaled slowly. "I know that was Leo is doing is wrong. I know you guys don't want any more blood spilled in Beacon Hills. And I know that Morinna must still have Jackson's memories, somewhere, even if she doesn't know it."

"You're leaving his pack," Lydia realised.

He nodded. "I'll leave the pack if it will help Jackson. I just need you to convince Morinna."

Strange Things Will Happen by The Radio Dept.

"I just don't understand what's distracting you, especially since Hadley moved away –"

" _Hayden_."

"Hayden? That's what I said," Dr Geyer sighed, sipping on his coffee. "She's not here to take up your time anymore. You're always hanging out with your friends but you can never tell me what you've been doing and where you've been, so it can't be very interesting. Are you just allergic to studying? Is that it?"

"No," Liam glowered, poking at his omelette.

"Have you lost your appetite too? Should I add that to the long list of problems we're having with you? I put red peppers in that omelette. And bacon. Lots of protein to keep you strong, and you don't even want to eat it. My kid won't study or eat. Are you depressed?"

"I'm not depressed! Can't you just leave me alone?" Liam exclaimed, stabbing his fork into the slippery eggs and scooping some into his mouth. "Look, I'm eating," he added, mouth full.

"Evasive, too. Is it drugs? Pull your sleeves up, show me the crooks of your arms."

Liam put his head in his hands. "Really, dad, really?"

"I just don't _get_ it, Liam. You're a bright kid. Two hours of studying a day, that's all I ask of you, and you can't show me a single page of notes you've taken so far this summer? I thought you wanted to go to college?"

"I do," Liam relied, shovelling the last forkful of omelette down. "In fact, I'm going to study right now. Have a good shift."

"Melissa's kid did the same thing, you know," his step-father called after him as he walked away. "Scott, your friend? Distracted from school, going out at weird times. He ended up flatlining on my table."

"He's still alive, dad. We saw him _two days_ ago," Liam said in disbelief, turning to stare incredulously at him.

"But we don't know how," Dr Geyer pointed out. "What is it I always say? You gotta put in the work, because you can't –"

"Depend on a miracle, I know."

The doctor pointed his fork at him, smiling good naturedly. "I love you, kid."

"Love you too," Liam muttered, disappearing up the stairs where he could fake-study in peace. He pushed open the door, ready to flop down on his bed dramatically.

Morinna, sat on the edge of his green comforter, gave him a bashful smile.

"Missed you," she said lightly.


	25. Chapter 25

Laser Gun by M83

"We track her by scent, ok? But we have to be careful. She only left a couple of days ago, so make sure you're not following an old trail. It hasn't rained yet."

"We know how to track someone, Scott," Malia sighed, rolling her eyes.

"Just to be clear," Scott added good naturedly, flashing a dazzling smile at her. "And I've not finished speaking. Lydia, the stakes please."

Lydia put down her coffee, faint purple circles visible under the heavy concealer she had put on. She reached down into the duffel bag at her feet, unzipping the top, and pulling out the rough wooden stakes one by one and holding them out for people to take.

"Whoa," Mason breathed, turning the wood over and over in his palm. "The old fashioned way. Stake to the heart. This is so cool."

"Nobody is using them," Isaac said, voice hard.

"The stakes are a last resort," Scott said firmly. "It will kill her, but obviously we'd rather not do that. We don't know if she's dangerous or not."

"She's not," Isaac chimed in, and Scott ignored him.

"But better safe than sorry. Keep the stake somewhere you can get to at any time. The number one thing to remember is that she can do her mind control stuff, so if she starts that then you should knock her out immediately. Then call me," Scott instructed. "When you find her, make sure there's no danger, make sure she won't leave, and then you call me. Okay?"

He waited for people to mumble their acknowledgements, and then slapped his thighs, standing up. "I'm going to check out her apartment. What about everyone else?"

"Shotgun the diner. I want a milkshake," Malia said, grinning.

"I'm going to the warehouse district," Stiles said, playing with the Velcro on his wrist support. "Great place to hide."

"I figure I'll go along main street and try catch a scent."

"Danny's. Then the Jungle and the restaurant we went to the other day," Lydia said decisively.

"Mason and Liam?"

Liam looked up, caught off guard. He blinked at them for a moment. "What was the question?"

"Where are you going to start tracking Morinna?"

"Oh, shit, right. Um. The book store, I guess? She likes books."

Stiles gave him a funny look.

"Ok. Well, keep looking until you run out of ideas. If you haven't caught a scent in two hours, then we regroup back here, ok?"

Malia enjoyed the jog to the diner. She liked feeling useful, like she was part of the pack, the way that she hadn't been in France. It had kind of hurt when she'd shown up to Scott's house and discovered they'd all skipped town without her. Like she was an afterthought.

She was absolutely determined to prove that she was worth dealing with. She was going to find Morinna. She had to.

It only took her ten minutes to get there, and Malia pulled her hair up into a messy ponytail, feeling the back of her neck cool down as beads of sweat evaporated. She pulled up the sock that had slunk down her ankle with one finger in her boot, and then pushed open the door. It certainly didn't _smell_ like Morinna.

Still, she did her due diligence and glanced around the place, listening to the buzz of inane chatter for anything significant, like the words _vampire_ or _I just saw Morinna ten minutes ago at this exact address_. Satisfied that she was nowhere around, Malia walked up to the counter to order a chocolate milkshake to go.

She placed her order and forked over a few dollars, standing to the side and scanning the specials while they made it. Suddenly a figure stepped into her line of vision. Malia furrowed her brow and squinted up at the face, silhouetted against the evening sun coming in through the windows.

"I came here for the local sights," said the man smoothly. "I think I'm looking at the best thing in town."

Malia rolled her eyes, turning her focus back to the chalkboard. "Not interested," she dismissed him. She'd lived in France for a year, for gods sake. She knew a well-rehearsed line when she heard one.

"Too bad," the man lamented. "Because I'm _very_ interested." She detected an accent – familiar and harsh. An English guy. There'd been plenty of those in France, too.

A familiar scent, too.

Malia jolted, concentrating finally. "You're a –" she yelped, cutting herself off abruptly when she remembered she was in a busy diner.

" _You're_ a…" he trailed off, looking amused.

"Yes, I'm a wolf. You are too. I'm a _busy_ wolf, so you better tell me why you're in our territory in the next ten seconds," Malia hissed, annoyed at the distraction from her task.

"Relax. I'm just passing through," he said nonchalantly. "You look stressed. Want a shoulder massage?"

"Pervert," Malia muttered, crossing her arms. "Get your food and leave." She plastered on a fake smile as the girl behind the counter handed a takeaway cup to her. "Thanks!"

"You're mean," the man pointed out, reaching out to stop her leaving with a hand on her shoulder.

Without hesitation, Malia snatched his hand out of the air and bent his fingers back, feeling the bones snap with a loud crack. "Yes, I am," she said, shoving past him. "Let's hope nobody from my pack runs into you. They're meaner. I'd get in my car and start driving, if I were you."

Hollow Visions by Eagulls

The warehouse district was a great idea. Stiles knew he'd go there if he was hiding from someone, the endless maze of uniform buildings and industrial equipment providing adequate shelter and protection. He also knew Morinna probably wasn't that smart, and that even if she was he wouldn't be able to track a vampire through a corrugated iron jungle without werewolf senses.

Maybe the broken wrist had made him hesitate too. Maybe.

He sat in the front seat of Roscoe, drumming on the steering wheel, listening to the white noise and static between messages on the police scanner. Morinna was great at blending in, so he doubted he'd hear any convenient reports, but he'd kick himself if there was one and he hadn't been listening.

Something was nudging at him to start driving. Stiles turned the key in the ignition, the engine humming as it came to life, and pulled back out into the street. He wasn't quite sure where he was going.

"Liam," he realised, turning the corner. "Liam was acting weird."

FBI training really _had_ turned out to be useful. Liam was rarely distracted, and he _always_ listened to Scott, but he hadn't been concentrating during the pack meeting. _And_ his feet had been pointing towards the door, which meant he subconsciously wanted to leave. Why was he so uncomfortable?

"I'm going to catch all the murderers," Stiles murmured indulgently, heading towards Liam's house.

There were no cars in the driveway, but one of the curtains upstairs was drawn with a strange glow around the edges as if the light was on in the daytime. Stiles smiled to himself.

He got out of the jeep and walked up to the door, looking around for a hide-a-key. There was a smooth rock under the shrubs to the left of the doorstep, and when he picked it up he felt it was plastic. A silver key was nestled in a cavity in the bottom, held in place by a clip. Stiles slid it out of its slot and into the lock of the door, trying not to make too much noise.

The house was quiet, with Liam's parents presumably at work. Stiles climbed the stairs, careful to put his weight only on the very sides of them where they were less likely to creak, until he reached the top and turned right so he was facing the room with the drawn curtains. The door was shut.

Patting his pocket to make sure the stake was in place, Stiles tentatively reached for the door handle.

It swung open in front of him.

He deftly pulled the weapon out of his jeans with his bad arm, feeling the fracture ache in protest. Morinna stared at the sharpened point, observing the way his injury made his hand shake. There was no way he could force a stake through her rib cage with any kind of ease.

"A stake? Vintage. Cool," she said, stepping back and sweeping an arm towards the bedroom. "You found me, I guess. Come on in."

Stiles glared at her. "I'm angry at you," he pointed out, annoyed that she didn't seem aware.

"Oh, I know," Morinna said nonchalantly, taking a seat at Liam's desk. "I'm angry at _you_. The fire thing was a dick move."

"You brainwashed Liam with your voodoo mind control," he accused her, brandishing the stake. "Made him lie to his pack.

"No, I didn't. Liam just doesn't want me to die. That's just you."

"I don't want you to die! I just… don't want you making other people die."

Morinna rolled her eyes. "I'm bored of this. Uncomfortable truce, or whatever. While you're here having a moral quandary, I need your help." She scraped the dirty blonde hair from the back of her head into a messy bun, winding it around itself. "Can you clean my head? It's scabbed over and gone disgusting."

Stiles glared at her. "You want me to perform first aid on you after you almost killed my packmate?"

"No. First aid is immediate response. I did this last night," Morinna quipped. "This is more like… fifth aid. I want you to perform fifth aid on me after I almost accidentally killed your packmate but stuck around long enough to make sure he was okay."

He glowered. "You're insane."

"Come on Stiles, serve and protect and all that. I even got the antiseptic wipes out already," Morinna encouraged him, pushing a small silver packet closer to him across the dark wood desk.

"That's the cops, not the FBI," Stiles muttered, against all better judgements crossing the room to pick up the packet. "No funny business or I'll knock you out. And I'm calling Scott in, like, two minutes."

"No, you're not," Morinna said with a smug confidence. "Does blood stain hair? I don't think it does, but I've always washed it off quickly before."

"Does blood stain – for gods sake, Morinna," Stiles swore, dabbing at the congealed blood. "And what do you mean, 'no, you're not'? Is that a threat?"

"It's a statement," Morinna said coolly, though Stiles felt her wince as her wound burned with the chemicals. "I've thought this all through, you see. Leo is looking for me, which means he's here in Beacon Hills. Scott and Isaac are also looking for me, and Leo knows that. And he knows they'll find me before he does, because they know the area and he doesn't. So, he's going to be keeping tabs on them, thinking they'll lead him right to me. Which means that if you call Scott, you're really summoning Leo. Then we all die, and what's been the point of all this?"

"I don't think there is a point," Stiles grumbled. "You need stitches, by the way. And Scott could take Leo. He's defeated worse. A whole pack full of alphas, once."

Morinna shrugged. "Really want to risk it? Leo's done some shit."

Stiles hesitated, throwing the brown-streaked wipe into the trashcan. "I'm calling Lydia," he compromised.

Devil's Backbone by The Civil Wars

Stiles swung open Liam's front door, jumping when he realised who was on the doorstep. He looked between Lydia, who looked sheepish, and a smug Ethan. Immediately he grabbed Lydia by the wrist, yanking her behind him as she yelped.

"What are you doing?" he barked at Ethan, trying to sound threatening. "What is this? Hostage exchange?"

"Calm down, Stiles, I brought him here, we're collaborating," Lydia sighed, putting a hand on his arm to ground him. "I think you pulled my stitches."

Stiles turned around to look at her, wide eyed. "What? You're working together? And you didn't tell me?"

"I couldn't say anything with Scott there," Lydia said, rubbing her shoulder.

"Anyone want to let me in before the pack I'm betraying realise I'm here and kill us all?" Ethan asked brightly, pushing past Stiles when he didn't move.

Lydia ignored the hurt look he was giving her, already too tired for what they were going to do. "Morinna's upstairs?" she clarified, and Ethan slipped past her and began climbing the stairs before Stiles could confirm. She supposed he could hear her.

Lydia followed him, pausing for Stiles to shut the door and then weaving her fingers through his as she followed Ethan. She squeezed his hand, a non-verbal ' _But we're okay, right?'_. He didn't squeeze back, his hand cold and unmoving.

A little pang of panic and pain flared up in her stomach.

Ahead of them, Ethan pushed through one of the bedroom doors and they heard Morinna shriek. The pair broke into a run, lurching towards the room, where Morinna was cowered in the corner brandishing Liam's desk lamp like it would be an effective weapon against a werewolf. She looked at them accusingly as they entered the room, acid in her eyes.

"You sold me out!" she spat, eyes flickering between them and Ethan. "You're not taking me back to him," she told him. "I'll die before I go back to him. He's a murderer."

Ethan rolled his eyes. "Do you ever chill out? I'm not here to take you."

Morinna narrowed her eyes, not lowering her arm. "Keep talking."

"I brought him here. To help you. He's one of us, I promise," Lydia explained, voice measured.

"One of you?" Morinna echoed, working over the sentence in her mind. "What do you mean, one of you?"

"This is Danny's ex-boyfriend. Remember, he dated a werewolf?"

"Why would he ever help me? After…" Morinna faltered, arm shaking, swallowing. "After what I did?"

"Because I think you can help _me_. Or Jackson, more specifically," Ethan explained. He held his hands up, palms towards her. "No weapons, see? I'm not going to hurt you."

"Your hands _are_ your weapons, Ethan," Morinna said scathingly, glaring at him.

"Okay, well I can't chop those off so you're going to have to trust me," Ethan dismissed, sounding frustrated. "Ah, I forgot!"

He unzipped the front pocket of his leather jacket and swiftly pulled out a plastic package, throwing it onto the bed between them. "Peace offering."

Morinna looked between him and the blood, not really trusting him but hungry nonetheless. Eventually she decided that, though neither Ethan or Stiles could be believed, Lydia had always seemed to have a pretty defined moral compass. She lowered the lamp, setting it back on the desk gently, and then snatched up the package.

"I don't know what you think I'll be able to help you with," she warned Ethan, tearing open the corner of the packet.

"Whoa, are you really going to do that here?" asked Stiles, looking mildly horrified.

"Why wouldn't I? I'm just eating dinner," Morinna said, giving him a scornful look. "Avert your eyes if it offends you. I bet you criticise people who breastfeed in public, too."

"That's totally different," Stiles objected, looking away as she began to suck out the plasma. "Oh god, that's –"

"Can you two stop bickering?" snapped Lydia. "Big scary werewolves out looking for you? Remember? Focus."

"Yeah, Stiles, focus," chided Morinna, suppressing a hysterical, exhausted giggle. Stiles tried not to gag at the dark red smear at the corner of her mouth.

Lydia gave her a look that reminded her of being in school, and Morinna shut up.

"I think I know how to protect you. It's a very simple ritual – it will create a sort of barrier that makes it impossible to follow your scent."

Morinna looked at her appraisingly. "Why do I get the impression that this simple ritual isn't very simple at all?"

Lydia smiled sweetly at her. "We just need one thing from you. Access."

"To what?"

"Your head," Lydia said, moving on too quickly for Morinna to immediately object. "We're fairly certain that when you feed on memories, they leave some kind of impression on your mind. We think Jackson's memories are still in your head."

Morinna almost choked on her blood. "You want to perform _brain surgery_ on me?"

"No, no, no, totally different," Lydia reassured her. "It's totally painless. Risk free. Wolves can facilitate it – both Scott and I have been inside Stiles' mind. And we don't just go snooping. You'll be in your mind too, obviously, so you can help us try to find the memories."

The vampire looked uncomfortable. "Aren't you guys gonna like, see all of my private memories?"

Lydia gave her a bright smile. "Would you rather die?"


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-SixYou Can Run by Adam Jones

"I think their phones are turned off," Malia surmised, frowning down at the screen of her own phone. "Why would they turn their phones off?"

The rest of the pack were in Scott's living room, seated except for Isaac who was pacing a hole into the carpet. "Nobody picked up anything?" he demanded, looking between them all.

"No, like we said. The closest we got was the heavy scent near her apartment. But that was, you know, near her apartment so it probably doesn't mean anything," Scott rehashed, swiping through his contacts to try Stiles' cell again.

Stiles picked up on the third ring.

"Hello? Scott?"

"Stiles!" Scott exclaimed, everyone sighing collectively with relief. "Are you with Lydia? Are you okay? We said we'd meet back here after two hours."

Stiles made a noise of indecision, and Scott heard a high-pitched voice in the background. "Yeah, sorry about that, buddy. Lydia's here. She's fine."

"Are you coming over? We're trying to figure out what to do next."

"Well… I'm not sure."

Scott narrowed his eyes at his friend's evasiveness. "What's wrong? You're acting weird. Did you find Morinna?"

"No," Stiles said, almost too quickly. "No, I mean, uh. Lydia and I had a fight. I think we, uh, need a while."

The suspicion disappeared. Stiles sounded genuinely worried and upset. And, after all, they could both definitely do with a break.

"Oh, right. No problem, as long as you need. Hope everything is okay, bro," Scott reassured Stiles, hanging up. "It's all cool. We just need to carry on without them for a while."

The rest of the pack nodded.

"How is it that they usually solve things? Murder board?" Malia mused. "Do you have a murder board, Scott?"

"Let me check the kitchen cupboard," Scott relied sardonically, ignoring Isaac's exasperated huff. "No. But that's not a bad idea, you know. Write down everything we know and try and find something we've overlooked. Even stuff that doesn't seem linked."

They set to work, Liam taking the role of scribe as he didn't seem to be talking much. They bullet pointed everything she had said about her past life, about Leo, where she lived and liked going. They even wrote down everything Lydia had said and done relating to her, from the blood bags to the body.

"Lydia found a body on the way to Motel Corazon," Mason said, narrowing his eyes at the poster board.

"We didn't know the victim, though," Isaac pointed out, pulling the paper closer to himself. "Let's not get distracted."

"No, no, no," Mason said, pulling it back. "Haven't you guys ever thought about how her powers work? Like, seriously?" Everyone looked at him blankly. "Clearly not. Okay, well consider this. If Lydia screamed for every person that died, she'd never stop screaming. That doesn't happen. It's not even every person locally. People must die every day in Beacon Hills, we have a major trauma unit in the hospital. She doesn't just scream for anyone, does she? And she's never screamed for anyone dying of natural causes."

"So..?" Malia prompted impatiently.

"I have this hypothesis about the criteria for a scream. I figure it needs to be a violent or unnatural death, which is why supernatural killings make the cut. I think there's definitely a distance thing, which is why she's always kind of close to the body. But I also think the deaths have to be linked to her in some way."

"Like she knows the victim?" Scott asked, eyebrows knitting together.

"Not necessarily. When she moved away, it made even more sense. I know she doesn't like to talk about finding those bodies in Massachusetts, but most of them were college students, right? They probably crossed paths in the library or at a party or something without even realising it. Well, I'm willing to bet that the ones who weren't students lived in the same neighbourhood or worked in her local Walmart or something. Why did Lydia scream for Alison, and not Heather? Because her powers are more in tune to people she's close to. So, what happens when she moves to a city where she knows nobody?"

"She tunes in to vague acquaintances," Scott filled in. "So, like I said, she knows the victim?"

"Again, not necessarily. Usually she knows the victim, but when she found that lifeguard? That was because she knew the murderer."

"She knows the…" Isaac snatched up the paper, scanning over it. "Who's the murderer?"

"I mean, we don't know if she _does_ –"

"I bet it's Leo," Isaac said determinedly, squinting at the Leo column.

"You can't accuse someone of murder just because you hate them," Mason chastised Isaac, trying to tug the paper back without ripping it.

"Wait…" Scott said, nausea creeping through his torso. "No, wait. This can't be right."

Four pairs of eyes snapped up to his face expectantly.

"When we got to the Motel. I recognised the scents of the wolves," Scott explained.

"Yeah, because it was Ethan and Jackson," Isaac filled in, looking exasperated.

"But I didn't get it right away because there was another scent mixed in. Still familiar, but it wasn't them," Scott said, calculating something in his head. "This sounds crazy, but I think I might have recognised Leo's scent. From the diner."

"The diner with the dead body?" Malia echoed in disbelief.

"So you're saying that Leo… Morinna's _ex boyfriend_ Leo… went to a diner and tore a girl to pieces in the bathroom? And then went back to snuggle with her? And now this guy's in Beacon Hills?"

"Oh, crap," Malia murmured, blanching. "There was a wolf in the diner earlier. He hit on me. God, I'm such an idiot, how did I not put that together? I was so focused on Morinna."

"If this is really him…" Isaac said, a disgusting truth dawning on him. "What's going to happen to Morinna if he finds her?"

Here With Me by Susie Suh

Small clods of dirt and mud fell from the ceiling as heavy footsteps walked the ground above them.

"If this thing caves in," said Morinna under her breath, "I'm going to be really annoyed."

"Shut up," Lydia hissed back, her manicured nails digging into Morinna's forearm.

"Ethan?" called an uncertain voice from above them, the steps pausing.

The wolf sighed in relief, crawling over to the ramshackle wooden hatch and pushing it up a few inches. "Down here."

The golden sunlight of dusk flooded into the root cellar as Jackson hoisted open the trap door, squinting down at them. "How did you find this place?"

"You don't want to know," Stiles informed him, glaring at the light. "Get in, quickly."

Jackson jumped down into the cavern, causing a fresh shower of mud to rain down on them. He pulled the hatch shut behind him, leaving them in near-darkness once more.

"I hope you have a genius plan that you forgot to tell me about," he said to Ethan, glaring at the vampire sat three feet away from them.

Ethan gave him a bright smile. "Morinna's going to give you your memories back. And then we're going to deal with Leo."

"Give is a strong word," Morinna objected from against the wall.

Jackson narrowed his eyes at her. "You mean all this time you could have just _given_ me back my memories?"

"You have to go fishing for them. You know, go inside her head," Stiles prompted. He ignored Morinna's sardonic _yippee_ behind him. "But, like, we are being hunted by terrifying British werewolves, so, if you could hurry."

Jackson blinked, mulling the plan over in his mind. "I've never done the mind merging thing before."

"I'm going in with you," Lydia reassured him. "I have a… talent for this kind of thing."

"But what about the actual… _procedure_?" Jackson asked, looking down at his hands as claws grew from his fingertips.

"The totally painless and risk free procedure?" Morinna said, voice hard, repeating what Lydia had told her earlier as she felt the sick, squeezing feeling of doubt creep over her.

"It'll be fine," Lydia said, voice too bright. "Come." She pulled Morinna with her, shuffling on her knees so that they were knelt in front of Jackson, who looked at the back of their heads worriedly. "Sweep your hair to one side, Morinna. Jackson has to touch the back of your neck."

"Touch?" the girl echoed, obliging.

Lydia turned to give the were-kanima a final, nervous smile. "The fleshy bit, right where the head meets the neck. Quickly."

Morinna had barely enough time to yelp before the claws were in her skin.

Serious Love by Anya Marie

" _Jackson!_ "

He turned around too fast, making himself even dizzier, to find Lydia less than a foot away from him. She put a hand onto his elbow to steady him.

"Morinna's head. We're in a park. It's just a memory. Okay?" she fired off rapidly, trying to ground him but already looking past his head for the next challenge.

Jackson turned slowly on the spot, recognising the browning grass and grey skies of an unfamiliar park. "Where's Mor…" he trailed off as he turned and saw the murky pond smattered with white ducks, and across it, at least fifty feet away from them, Morinna. She had her arms wrapped around herself like she was cold, and her eyes were trained on a little girl in pink wellington boots throwing white bread into the water, so short that Jackson hadn't even noticed her. Caramel coloured hair tangled over her yellow raincoat.

Over the water, Jackson locked eyes with the older Morinna. After a few seconds she turned away and began to stride towards a copse of trees in the near distance, on one side of the lake between them both.

"Come on," Lydia said in a low voice, heading in the same direction.

They watched Morinna disappear into the tree line in the impossible way of memories, somehow covering swathes of ground in a short amount of time without seeming to move at any great speed. When they reached the trees they found themselves in a classroom, small and grey with garish coloured paper on the walls.

"People like to say that they were blinded by love, but I don't think that's a fair point to make," said the woman at the front of the room, perched on the edge of a desk and clutching a dog-eared copy of _Romeo and Juliet_. "I don't think we can discount the love that they had as something irrational that should have been ignored in their decision-making process. Did they succumb to love, or did they acknowledge its significance? Did they have feelings that we don't comprehend, that we don't think are credible, that justify their eventual deaths as a sacrifice rather than a tragedy?"

"She's not here," Lydia mumbled, pushing Jackson towards the door opposite them, through it, and into the deafening noise of a school prom. Blue and red lights pulsated along with the music, a boyband crooning through the speakers, reverberating through the polished wood floor. Teenage girls in floor-length gowns and uncomfortable-looking boys shouted to each other over the music, swaying and turning in the middle of the room, too awkward to dance properly.

"Prom," Jackson called to Lydia, whose head was bobbing as she tried to make out faces in the low light.

The music changed abruptly, a clumsy mix, into _Bette Davis Eyes_ and a nervous laugh shimmered around the room as the teens reluctantly paired up for the slow dance, several of them vacating the dancefloor completely. Lydia grabbed Jackson by the elbow and he turned to see what had caught her attention; a young couple in the centre of the dancefloor, kissing, a tangle of limbs. Watching at the edge of the throng was the memory of Morinna in a purple lace dress with a full skirt, eyes big and full of tears, hands clapped over her mouth. Next to her was the Morinna they knew, face hard and eyes expressionless, watching alongside herself with her arms crossed. She met eyes with them across the room for just a moment, just as her old self turned and fled from the room. Morinna stalked after her, her biker boots smacking against the wood, and Lydia followed, throwing Jackson off balance as she pulled him behind.

They ran out of the plate glass doors and into a gaslit corridor lined with doors, both Morinnas ten feet ahead of them. The girls bowled into a door at the end of the walkway, flinging it open, and Lydia and Jackson heard a shriek.

When they pushed through the door they found themselves in an unremarkable living room with neat white walls and navy blue furnishings. Cowered in the corner next to a bookcase, still shrieking, was Morinna – the modern Morinna, her face contorted as her eyes squeezed shut, hands pressed to her ears and mouth open wide.

"Morinna!" Lydia shouted, trying to get her attention. She knelt in front of the girl, trying to pull her hands away. Jackson crouched next to them, trying to read Morinna's face, understand what in the sparse room had terrified her so much. Her eyes flickered open, widening, looked past them in horror.

They followed her gaze and almost fell back in shock at the room. Transformed from the mundane room they had entered, the white walls were smattered with blood. In the centre of the floor was a woman, nearly dead, drained and pale, covered in crescent moon shaped bite marks. She had the same wide blue eyes as Morinna and was half seated, held up by a creature who stared at Morinna as he sucked at a wound on the shoulder. Just visible in the doorway was the blue-tinged hand of another victim.

The creature was grotesque. It had leathery, chalky brown skin, totally hairless all over, concealed by a ragged black pair of shorts and a filthy white t-shirt. It watched them with narrow red eyes, slits in its face either side of a sharply arched nose.

Cowered against the wall, Morinna was still wailing. Lydia prised her hands from her ears.

"It's not real," she cried, lips brushing against the side of the girl's head.

Morinna, quivering beneath them, pushed Lydia away and curled into herself, sobbing.

"What do we do?" Jackson shouted over the noise. He felt sorry for the girl, surrounded by the memory of her trauma, but he wasn't getting any closer to his own past.

"She's not moving past this one," Lydia explained, face grave. "She needs to do something drastic. Change the situation."

Jackson nodded. He nudged Lydia out the way so he was face to face with the girl, putting his hands on her cheeks.

"Morinna," he yelled, repeating the name until she forced her eyes open. "Morinna, you have to kill it. Okay? We'll help you kill it, but I need you to make the first move."

"I can't," Morinna choked out, mascara-tears streaming down her face.

"You can," Jackson said firmly. "It's not real. This already happened, it can't happen again. It can't hurt you here, okay?"

"Just go," she sobbed, pushing his hands away.

"If you don't stand up right now and do this, then out in the real world Leo is going to kill us all," Jackson snapped, and Lydia looked at him reproachfully.

It worked, however. Morinna sniffed and choked back her whimpers, eyes fixed on the creature in front of them, an obscene slurping noise emanating from its mouth as it drank. She forced herself to her feet and took a staggering step towards it.

"Get up," she purred, though her voice quivered.

The creature stopped, dropping the body with a sick thump. It licked it lips before standing, almost as if it was unaffected by Morinna's compulsion. Perhaps it was.

Morinna froze, suddenly unsure. She had not thought this far ahead. The creature stepped over the body between them, closing the gap and pausing for a reaction. From behind, Jackson could see her shaking. The creature put a hand around, running the peeling skin on the back of its hand down the side of her face. Her eyes squeezed shut. It took the opportunity to put a hand on the small of her back, pulling her body against its own, and bury its nose into her hair, inhaling deeply. Morinna began to sway, close to fainting.

Jackson watched, wondering if he should intervene. It wasn't his head, his memories.

Next to him, Lydia picked up a table lamp and swung it.

The glass shade shattered, exposing the jagged and broken bulb beneath. The creature let go, stepping back and hissing, revealing two sets of fangs set in its yellowed teeth.

Morinna snapped back into action, looking at the lamp in awe. Lydia shoved it into her hands.

"Kill it," she barked, but the girl just stared down at the makeshift weapon. "Kill it!"

After a moment of inactivity, Lydia sighed and rooted herself in place, opening her palms in front of her. She took a deep breath and screamed, the creature scarpering out of the broken window and pictures falling from the walls.

Morinna looked at the window and then back at the lamp, dropping it on the floor. She followed it, cutting her knees on the glass as she knelt next to the twitching corpse of her mother. She touched the forehead, tears rolling down her face.

"We have to go," Lydia said gently, unwilling to force her to her feet.

She got up anyway, taking a lingering look around the room before walking numbly to follow the creature through the window.

The club they found themselves in was pounding with bass, the floor sticky with spilt sugary drinks. Jackson recognised it as Caribbean House, only twenty minutes away from the pack apartment. It was a tacky establishment, full of fake palm trees and completed by a giant fake waterfall against one wall that someone had one dared him to jump into. They'd been there a lot.

With a jolt he recognised himself in the corner, leant against the wall and sneering while Ethan murmured to him. He had to pry his eyes away when Lydia tapped on his shoulder, directing his attention to Leo, who had backed Morinna into a corner at the bar. The modern Morinna sighed beside him, and he followed her as she walked away from the start of the tragedy and towards the waterfall. She climbed over the stone barrier and waded through, disappearing through the thundering waterfall and into the wall behind it.

They followed her in, the water unsettlingly warm, as the noise silenced and they stepped into the dingy bedroom she had been kept in before she had escaped.

"Home sweet home," Morinna introduced, sat cross legged on the bed. She looked exhausted. "I don't know how to leave this one. There's no escape."

Lydia looked around at the room, grimacing. "How long did you stay here?"

Morinna shrugged, lying down. "I lost track."

The picture in front of them shimmered, and just for a moment Lydia thought she saw the London skyline reflected onto the wall in front of her.

"I can feel it again, being back here. I was so thirsty and there was this… this urge. My brain was telling me to do something. I didn't know what. It was driving me crazy," Morinna murmured, her eyes drooping shut.

Lydia nodded, the wall shifting again so she could see the twinkling lights on an entire city. Jackson gasped next to her.

"What's happening?" Morinna asked, sounding nervous.

"You found them," Jackson said, trepidation in his voice. "You found my memories."


End file.
